Investing in Education: Combating Educational Disadvantage

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Investing in Education Combating Educational
Disadvantage

• Emer Smyth and Selina McCoy
• Barnardos Written Out, Written Off Education
  Seminar
• Chester Beatty Library
• 13 May 2009

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Outline of presentation

• Overview of educational inequality
• Consequences and costs of early school leaving
• Educational policy in relation to disadvantage
• Issues for policy

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Educational inequality in Ireland

• Unequal outcomes at every stage of the
  educational career
• Differences in achievement/grades
• Leaving Certificate completion rates
• Transition to third-level education

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Primary reading scores and mothers education
(ERC, 2005)
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Leaving Certificate completion
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Consequences of early leaving

• Early school leaving has striking effects on a
  range of adult outcomes
• Early leavers are more likely to be unemployed
  and, if unemployed, to be employed for a longer
  period

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Unemployment rate (2008)
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Employment

• Early leavers are more likely to work in less
  skilled jobs
• They receive lower average pay

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Lone motherhood
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Health outcomes

• Early leavers are more likely be in poor/fair
  rather than good health
• Higher rates of anxiety/depression
• Higher rates of smoking and heavy drinking
• Greater dependency on medical card

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Medical card ownership (early leavers v. LC
group)
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Broader social outcomes

• Vast majority of those in prison are early
  leavers
• In 2002, committal rate of 46.6 per 1,000 early
  leavers v. 1.6 for LC
• Consequences for educational outcomes among the
  next generation

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Costs for society of early leaving

• Welfare payments for unemployed and lone parents
• Income tax foregone for those not in employment
• Health Utilisation of health services
• Crime Cost of imprisonment
• Reinforces existing social and economic
  inequality

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Educational policy

• Focus on targeted provision for schools with a
  concentration of children from disadvantaged
  backgrounds (DEIS)
• New ESRI evidence shows that DEIS schools do
  indeed have a high concentration of disadvantaged
  students

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Students with difficulties (gt25) Primary schools
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Students with difficulties (gt25) Second-level
schools
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Profile of DEIS schools

• Less likely to be over-subscribed
• Higher concentration of newcomers and Travellers
• Second-level higher of students with learning
  or physical disabilities
• School climate behaviour and engagement of
  students involvement of parents

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But not all disadvantaged children are in DEIS
(second-level) schools
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Perception of DEIS scheme

• DEIS principals broadly positive about the scheme
  and School Completion Programme
• Class size reductions
• Resources and planning for literacy/numeracy
• Provision of meals within school
• Capacity to promote parental involvement
• But issues raised by principals and stakeholders
  in relation to policy more generally

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Issues for policy Early intervention

• Gap on entry to school
• Children start off behind others, way behind
  the starting line, children who present at school
  significantly behind their peers Basically
  theyre playing catch-up from then on.
• Importance of preschool education (potential of
  the new ECCE scheme)

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Issues for policy Targeting

• Targeting disadvantaged schools alone is not
  enough not all disadvantaged children are in
  DEIS schools
• Reported difficulty among principals in providing
  information for targeting
• There is anecdotal evidence that ... the idea is
  you talk up your school, or talk down your
  school. If youre being truly honest about your
  school, that can put you at a disadvantage
  Schools can lose out if youre being too honest

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Issues for policy Evaluation

• Lack of Data and Evaluation
• The lack of data generally is a very
  significant problem I mean how many children do
  actually leave straight from primary school? At
  this stage in the 21st century we cant actually
  identify that, bit of a nonsense really!
• We just dont do it evaluation, we dont have
  a culture here. We have a fear of it in some
  ways
• DEIS - emphasis on evaluation

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Issues for Policy Fragmentation

• Schools do not exist in isolation need for
  joined-up policy across education, health and
  welfare services
• You cant treat the child in isolation. We
  would be able to pinpoint at four years of age
  children who are at risk for a number of reasons,
  it could be speech and language, it could be more
  emotional, or lack of emotional, development. And
  I dont think as a society that we are providing
  those services. Were being reactive rather
  than proactive.

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Recent changes post-Budget

• Huge potential of new preschool scheme
• Ring-fencing of DEIS schools
• But potential impact of some measures on DEIS
  schools
• Likely impact on disadvantaged children in
  non-DEIS schools book grants grants for
  specific groups programme grants SEN students

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Recent changes On the ground

• I think its the start of chipping away and
  dismantling a lot of the foundations for the
  weaker students in the system.
• School has to be more than books, school has to
  be an experience for children and the sports and
  the games and the extra-curricular thats what
  has made our education system good. There was an
  emotional reaction almost to the Budget, they
  could see all of this being pulled All of that
  qualitative enrichment of the curriculum, these
  things arent trips, they are enrichment of the
  curriculum. They are going and they are gone.

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Final words

• Educational equity is a moral imperative for a
  society in which education is a crucial
  determinant of life chances. (Henry Levin, US,
  2009)
• Were losing huge potential here.
• (DEIS school principal, 2009)