School drop-outs - Education should not be spurned

THOUGH the immediate focus is on the crisis in our health service, there are many other social challenges that require urgent attention.

Just one of these is the dispiriting news that the school drop-out rate among 15-year-olds has more than doubled during the last 10 years. This is despite massive investment in increasing retention rates.

The figures show that 3,679 15-year-olds, or 6.6% of the 58,318 people of that age, had ceased full-time education when the census was taken in April last year. The equivalent rate was 5.5% in 2002 and 3.1% in 1996.