Madam, - The recent report of the National Education Welfare Board (NEWB) on school absenteeism offers little consolation.
The raw scores, which indicate that 1.10 pupils at primary level and 1.5 students at secondary level have missed more than 20 days out of the relatively short school year (183 and 167 days in primary and post-primary respectively), raise at least three serious questions:
One: the statistics lack conviction because they lack detail and classification.
We do not know whether we have a school system bedevilled by truancy, chronic illness, sheer boredom or the delinquency of Celtic Tiger parents who take their kids on random term-time holidays.
What value are these figures without the discipline of specific statistical analysis?
Two: the figures suggest that each of the 63 education welfare officers appointed to date (the original target, resources permitting, was over 130) will have a case load of over 1,000 students, truant or otherwise.
Is the Government prepared to resource this service, by the provision of adequate staffing levels?
Three: one of the stated functions of the NEWB is to design programmes and strategies to promote school attendance and to prevent the opposite.
To date the board, quite correctly, has sought to discover the extent of absenteeism, but has remained alarmingly silent on those areas requiring proactive engagement.
When is the "real" work of the NEWB - the promotion and encouragement of attendance - going to start? - Yours, etc.,
DEREK WEST,
Principal,
Newpark Comprehensive School,
Newtownpark Avenue,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.