THE Minister for Education should ban the suspension of pupils from schools, the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF) has been told.
A ban on out of school suspension would help address the problem of early school leaving by keeping the pupil in the education system, a researcher with the Marino Institute of Education, Mr Scott Boldt, told the forum. However, it would be introduced only after consultation with principals and teachers.
Mr Boldt said students who dropped out or were suspended often wished to return to school "later. "The law is that they have to be accepted in a school, but no particular school is obliged to take them. This issue must be addressed."
One in five school students have failed in, or are being failed by the education system, according to a submission from the Department of Enterprise and Employment presented at yesterday's plenary session.
Dr Philip O'Connell of the ESRI told the forum that two main factors - economic and social disadvantage, and motivation - influenced the decision to leave school early.
However, the provision of training and employment opportunities for young people suffering disadvantage fell "far short" of what was needed. Although 13,000 left school each year with poor qualifications, there were only 6,400 places on FAS and Department of Education schemes.
The solution to unemployment lay in redistributing unemployment from the disadvantaged to other groups in society, Father Sean Healy of the Conference of Religious of Ireland told the forum.
Father Healy said that if unemployment was to be tackled successfully, 412,000 jobs would have to be created in the coming years. But this "wasn't going to happen", so the burden would have to redistributed more evenly across the population.
The recent ESF evaluation report had shown that 39 per cent of the school population was "educationally disadvantaged", he added. "Any operation that has a 39 per cent failure rate has very serious problems."
Father Healy said the school system was a "middle class phenomenon" which was not seen as relevant by many working class people. In some areas, the home school liaison scheme was working as an "anti community", service.
The Department of Education's Early Start pre school scheme had replaced community driven programmes and downgraded the people who ran these. "It seems as though we're putting peopled into school so they can drop outs earlier."
The Minister for State for Enterprise and Employment, Ms Eithne Fitzgerald, said that young people who took a non academic route such as apprenticeship's should not be condemned as failures.
Mr Gearoid Maoilmhichil, representing youth organisations, said he hoped some students would shortly take a case of "constructive dismissal" for their treatment in schools. "Many young people are being told they are not suitable for the system, when the system is not suitable for them." Senator Bill Cotter accused the third level colleges of being "morbidly inactive" in developing a system more attuned to the needs of all students, not just the brightest.
