Ireland needs to make new efforts to tackle educational disadvantage, the Labour Party has said.
The party’s education spokesman Ruairí Quinn said early school-leaving was a “huge problem” which was far too easy to ignore.
He was responding to an ESRI report published today which says some 9,000 students leave secondary school every year without a Leaving Certificate qualification.
The most comprehensive study of early school-leaving patterns to have been undertaken by the ESRI found gender and social class are strong determinant factors in early school-leaving patterns, with young men from working-class or unemployed households most likely to leave school before completing the Leaving Cert.
“Education is the key to creating a more equal society. It is distressing to see that that social class and gender strongly influence which pupils leave school early. If you are a young, working-class male, then our education system is not best positioned to help you,” Mr Quinn said.
He said difficulties with literacy were a common factor in early school leaving and long-term unemployment.
Mr Quinn said the DEIS programme to help disadvantaged schools comes up for review later this year.
“I will be strongly urging the Minister for Education and Skills to put literacy and numeracy at the heart of any new strategy to tackle disadvantage in our schools over the coming years.”