Republican News · Thursday 25 April 2002

Early school leavers unchanged

The National and Social Economic Forum (NESF) report on early school leavers this week gives a good snapshot of the realities of the impact Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have made in government.

The NESF report found that the annual number of students leaving secondary school without qualifications has not changed during the lifetime of this government and that 60% of school leavers had part-time jobs.

There is nothing wrong with young people working but some investigation needs to be made on the impact that this could be having on their studies.

other worrying aspect of the NESF report was that a higher percentage of those leaving school early are coming from semi and unskilled manual work backgrounds. Less than 1% of the early school leavers come from the higher paid social classes.

The net result is that the process where the families of the wealthy complete their education while children in lower income households leave school without qualifications continues.

Now what was that Bertie Ahern said about not believing Ireland was a society for rich and poor?