Tuesday, February 06, 2007
20 percent do not sit the leaving cert…
It is notoriously difficult to do comparisons across the border, but it seems that the National Educational Welfare Board is concerned enough with parental attitudes towards their children’s’ education to have published a report today commissioned from Mori Ireland. Yet the most interesting detail is in the statement from CEO Eddie Ward, that 20% of the population don’t sit the Leaving Cert (H/T Willis):
“Many thousands of our children and young people do not attend school regularly and their life chances are limited by that fact. The State is struggling with skill shortages at a time when 1 in 20 students do not sit the Junior Certificate, the minimum educational certification, and 1 in 5 do not sit the Leaving Certificate. In the long term, this gives rise to other costs to the State in the form of increased supports and to the individual in terms of unfulfilled potential. In addition, investment in teachers and schools is being lost out on through absenteeism.
The CSO has specific detail on qualification levels back in 2002. Northern Ireland fell well behind the rest of the UK, with 38% of our students coming out without qualifications.
Mick Fealty @ 05:46 PM
Surely what we are missing in this whole debate are some comparative input/output facts.
Surely it would have been good to know, for instance ,out of the 1970 11+ cohort how many of each grade went on to get GCSE, degree etc
Posted by on Feb 06, 2007 @ 11:41 PMTruth is, I was attracted to this article by the very accurate and perceptive item in the Belfast Telegraph.
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/ireland/article2243010.ece
“ Tuesday, February 06, 2007
One fifth of teenagers in this country don’t sit their Leaving Certificate, according to figures released this afternoon.Absenteeism and school drop outs were given as the main reasons for such a high number.
The new report, published by the National Educational Welfare Board, found that most adults believe school absenteeism has a negative impact on children.
It also revealed that if children who miss out days at primary school, are more likely to continue doing so at secondary level.”
I realise that the Tele is hosting the “Great Schools Debate”. It might be good if they did some geography, or was this just a straight lift from the Indo?
Posted by on Feb 06, 2007 @ 11:50 PMPeople are missing out on the fact that the leaving cert is ridiculously difficult, and at the end of the day some people just aren’t academically suited, so why put pressure on them. These days in the Free State a trade is much much more valuble than a degree.
Posted by on Feb 07, 2007 @ 11:17 AMI studied computers at an insitute of technology and there were a few people in my class who had no leaving certificate (and one or two of those even went on to get a degree).
They were admitted to the college after first doing a FAS course in computers - it would be interesting to see figures for similar cases.
Just goes to show that the LC is not the be-all-and-end-all it’s perceived to be, although it does produce educationally well-rounded individuals in general. Chemistry, German and Geography were things I hated in school (and did badly in in the LC) but I’m glad I studied them as I developed an interest in them after school.
Posted by on Feb 07, 2007 @ 03:16 PM
