Depleted school attendance service

FEWER than 40 welfare officers will be monitoring pupil attendance when the country’s 4,000 schools reopen next week.

The new Education Welfare Board set up last July has just 37 staff. A further 36 are being recruited but won’t be in place until Christmas at the earliest. But a report commissioned by the Welfare Board shows that 360 staff are needed to provide a complete, nationwide service as envisaged under the Education Welfare Act.

The delay means that only Dublin, Cork and Waterford will have a school attendance service from next week and the attendance of some of the country’s most disadvantaged children will be left unsupervised. Opposition politicians say the old service, which involved the gardaí and truancy officers, should have been left in place until the necessary staff was available nationwide. Fine Gael’s Olwyn Enright says disadvantage can’t be tackled if children simply aren’t at school.

“The gardaí had a role before in school attendance. But the new Welfare Act strips them of their legal authority in such cases now. Having 37 staff available at the start of a new school year simply is not sufficient. The limited service in 23 counties should have been left in place until the service in Dublin, Cork and Waterford could be expanded nationwide,” the party’s education spokesperson said.

Welfare Board chief executive officer Eddie Ward admitted that the 37 existing staff won’t be able to provide blanket cover to all schools.

“There is no doubt but that a very significant State commitment will be needed for this service. We have been in discussion with the department about next year’s budget. This service will require more resources. We also need to be able to allocate staff on a basis of need.

“We will be providing an intensive service in disadvantaged areas. But on a basis of having 73 staff nationally, the service we can provide to the country’s 3,200 primary schools and 750 second-level schools will be limited.

“Seventy-three officers covering such a large amount of schools would involve spreading the service too thinly,” he added. The old 1926 School Attendance Act focused on sanctions and penalties for parents of children who do not attend school. The 2000 Education Act is much broader and looks at welfare procedures, the reasons for absences and remedies in such situations.

“We will only be taking legal action as a last resource, where a parent is negligent and where a sanction will bring out improvement in attendance.”

The Welfare Board will also be compiling a register of children who are being taught outside of the home and will be setting up a national inquiry service. It will also collate statistics on school attendance and will strive to ensure that each child in the State either attends school or gets an education.