The Minister for Education and Science, Dr Woods, recently joined four young people from For≤ige, the National Youth Development Organisation, to unveil a programme designed to tackle the problem of early school leaving in Ireland.
Entitled Comhar - A For≤ige Schools Partnership, the programme is a manual for youth workers and teachers who aim to meet pupils' learning needs through best practice.
"Comhar" is an Irish word meaning mutual assistance, co-operation, combined work, and partnership. The word was traditionally used among communities in Ireland to denote neighbourly co-operation.
The programme is based on a pilot project carried out in three schools in the west of Ireland.
The project comprised several strands, some in-school and some out-of-school, as well as mentoring and parental involvement.
Comhar provides a firm and structured strategy for helping to keep potential early school leavers in school.
Benefits of the programme include: developing close links among young people within their peer group; providing a safe environment where young people can express and develop themselves at their own pace; providing activities - in the classroom and in the local community - where young people can develop new skills and build their self-confidence; providing adult mentors for young people who they can trust and in whom they can confide.
For≤ige's aims are to help young people in terms of both their own and society's development.
Further information is available from the organisation's website at www.foroige.ie
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