Bodily present in class with minds elsewhere

Literacy standards at age 14 place Ireland among the weakest in the OECD. More than 20 per cent of young teenagers show low reading attainment compared to 5 per cent in France and Finland.

These figures prompted the recent suggestion by Fine Gael that potential drop-outs from second-level schools be paid £36 weekly to stay in school. Though well intentioned, the proposal is a worryingly misguided plan for a number of reasons.

It does not address the issue of why such a high percentage of students are not attaining literacy and numeracy. It also assumes that physical presence in the classroom ensures that learning takes place and it ignores the finding that extrinsic rewards are rarely effective carrots. Also, it does not consider that the discriminating practice of rewarding the poorly motivated and disadvantaged may affect those students who are intrinsically motivated, and it puts pressure on an already highly stressed teaching profession to teach students who do not want to be in school.

As regards the first issue raised above, there are multiple reasons why a good percentage of students drop out early, and money is unlikely to resolve those causes:

conflictual home environment;

parents' own poor level of educational attainment;

parents' negative attitudes to education;

push from family to get work;

peers' negative attitudes to school;

lack of role-models in local community;

students/parents not seeing education as an option;

students' poor self-worth;

run-down and demeaning school environment;

school curriculum not geared towards particular students' needs;

teaching approach not suitable for these particular students;

problems within students themselves (hunger, drug-taking, fatigue);

humiliating circumstances of having fallen so far behind other students;

the home address and accent factors;

lack of integration of educational initiatives to help disadvantaged;

lack of guidance.

In view of the above list it would be better if the proposed £100 million were spent more creatively. Some possible spending could be on evaluation of current interventions, development of a mentoring system, creative linking of education and work, ways of raising these young people's sense of themselves, fostering of a love of learning and whole-family educational interventions.

One of the principal oversights of the Educational Youth Wage proposal is the assumption that physical presence in the classroom is a guarantee of educational progress and consequent reduction in educational disadvantage.

One of the major sources of stress in teaching is not the physical but the psychological absence of children in the classroom. A high percentage of children occupy their attention with issues that may be far more important to them than the school curriculum.

. . . rewarding the poorly motivated and disadvantaged may affect those students who are intrinsically motivated, and it puts pressure on an already highly stressed teaching profession to teach students who do not want to be in school

Examples of what occupies their minds other than academic learning are:

worries about a troubled parent;

anxiety regarding going home after school;

fears of being bullied;

preoccupation with abuse experiences;

how to get attention of peers;

how to get noticed by teachers;

dislike of self;

worries about physical appearance;

hunger;

planning how to get or make some money;

day-dreaming;

occupied with own interests (for example, sports, art, music);

fatigue.

Many children who do not concentrate on their studies are inappropriately labelled as having ADD (attention-deficit disorder) or as lazy or of possessing poor intellect. More often than not what is missing is a holistic assessment of these students' learning difficulties. It is essential that the causes of psychological absence be addressed before aggravating the problem with enforced or cajoled physical presence in the classroom.

Psychological readiness for learning is not sufficiently addressed in schools, but teachers well know the frustration of trying to teach children who are not motivated. Efforts to resolve these children's emotional, social and physical disadvantaged worlds would be money well spent.

Dr Tony Humphreys is a consultant clinical psychologist and author of A Different Kind of Teacher