Education system ‘failing Irish children’

While thousands of anxious teenagers await their Junior Certificate results today, the Children’s Rights Alliance (CRA) is calling on the Government to support the estimated 2,000 children who will have no results to pick up.

The CRA will be issuing its own ‘Report Card’ on the Government’s education commitments, which will also look at health, child poverty and children in society.

According to the 2006 Census, approximately 6% of 15-year-olds ceased their full-time education. The Government’s Towards 2016 education commitment has the aim that “every child will complete a senior cycle or equivalent”.

The Alliance’s preliminary research for its report, the first in a new series of annual audits of Government commitments, out in January 2009, has found that “Government targets lack ambition and a willingness to plough dedicated monies and resources into education”.

In relation to literacy, the Government’s commitment is to bring down the number of children from disadvantaged communities with difficulties from 30% to 15% by 2016. The CRA claim their research suggests that the Government will struggle to meet this target.

Jillian van Turnhout, the Alliance’s chief executive, says: “Our preliminary research has found that the Government is failing to give all of our children the chance to reach their full potential. Not only does this fail to live up to the principles contained within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ratified by the State in 1992, but it also fails to deliver on the Government’s own goals and commitments.”

“Nearly 2,000 children leaving school without their Junior Cert is appalling – enough children to fill half a dozen cinema theatres. It is unacceptable that we have spent our wealthier years spending less on education than 19 other countries, not in the world, but in the EU.

“No doubt we will hear of record Junior Cert results and we will share in parents’ pride in the academic achievements of our young students, but what of those children who are on the margins of society? How will the Government stop future generations from slipping through the cracks of our education system?

“This is a make-or-break juncture for the Government and with the global credit crunch and impending, emergency Budget, the situation is likely to worsen unless we invest in our children.

“The Alliance is watching and, in January, we will be reporting on the Government’s record in upholding the day-to-day rights of children in Ireland.”