Early school leaving ‘requires action’

ALL children should be tracked from pre-school through to college to monitor their progress and help find ways to cut dropout rates, an Oireachtas report has recommended.

The study on early school leaving by the Oireachtas education committee also calls for greater coordination between the raft of agencies that deal with young people at risk of not reaching Leaving Certificate. Most recent data shows that, while the dropout rate has fallen from one-in-five to one-in-six in a decade, boys and certain categories of pupils are more likely than others to fall between the cracks.

The report rapporteur, Senator Fidelma Healy Eames, Fine Gael, said the findings should go a long way to eliminating obstacles met by early school-leavers in the one-size-fits-all model on which the school system largely relies.