Literacy, Early School Leaving and access to 3rd level education are ongoing issues in the North West Inner City area. Department of Education figures also indicate that there are a large number of schools in the area in receipt of special need's provision. While this suggests that there is a broad cross section of pupils attending the schools, it also indicates an extra demand on schools in terms of education provision with a higher than average percentage of special need's students presenting in the schools locally.

Probably the most significant feature however is the change taking place in the local schools, at both Primary and Secondary levels. With a significant increase of new communities in the area, particularly non-Irish nationals, there has been an increase in the numbers attending the schools with a consequent increase in the number attending without English as their first language. This has brought new demands in the delivery of educational programmes along with challenges around social integration of students

Current Activities

The Education Working Group is working on the following:

• Involved with various education foras e.g., Schools Completion Committee's; Local Education Committee's, etc.
• Involved in representing the local education needs to DIT in relation to  the new development of Grangegorman.. This may be best achieved
  by linking in with the Grangegorman Working Group.
• Promoting programmes and approaches, which will address the issue of Family Literacy.
• Advocating on behalf of the he informal education sector

Links:

www.dit.ie/grangegorman
www.education.ie
www.newb.ie
www.aontas.ie

For Further information please contact Noleen Jennings at 6174847 or e-mail: noeleen@nwicn.ie