Call for more funding to tackle truancy

THE Government has been urged to properly fund the National Educational Welfare Board (NEWB) to help reverse trends that show one-quarter of second-level students in poor areas missed at least 20 days of school last year.

The board has published figures which give the first national picture of absenteeism in the country’s 4,000 primary and second-level schools.

Its summary report shows that the average student missed 22 of the required 167 days at second-level schools in areas designated as disadvantaged, and 26% of students missed more than 20 days.

The board is obliged to take action in cases of students with such poor attendance but they are identified much earlier in areas where its Educational Welfare Officers (EWOs) are based.

In other areas, the average absence for second-level students was just 14 days and less than one-in-five missed more than 20 days of school.

The NEWB has more than 80 staff in six cities and the 12 towns, but can only provide emergency services in other areas because of its resources.

Green Party education spokesperson Paul Gogarty called on the Government to guarantee the necessary funding for the NEWB to tackle unacceptably high levels of non-attendance.

“It is essential that the full complement of EWOs is appointed as quickly as possible. The NEWB needs to get close to the 25 million it requested last year, rather than the actual figure of just 5.7 million,” he said.

Mr Gogarty pointed to links between low literacy at primary level and poor attendance rates at second level, and urged Charlie McCreevy’s successor as

Finance Minister to ensure sufficient resources were provided to tackle both problems in next year’s Book of Estimates.

Labour Party education spokesperson Jan O’Sullivan said the NEWB needs 300 EWOs to meet its legal obligations but has been starved of funding.

“The Minister for Education has spoken at length about his commitment to tackling education disadvantage but his treatment of this issue gives the lie to that,” she said.

“It is scandalous that in modern Ireland, truancy rates are so high. There is a need to examine the reasons for this from an educational point of view, and to look at the root causes of educational disadvantage in terms of poverty and social exclusion, rather than just trying to paper over the cracks,” Ms O’Sullivan said.