Foreword

YOUTHREACH was established in October 1988 to provide education and training for young people who left school without adequate qualifications. A range of certification options has come into play for this group in the intervening period, principally through the NCVA and FAS. Some centres also deliver CERT-accredited training. In 1992, it was agreed with the Department of Education, as it was then known, that participants could enter the Junior Certificate examination as external or 'mature' applicants. They are thus enabled to study for individual subjects, or clusters of subjects. This report is a study of the results of this measure in 1998.

A questionnaire was sent to all YOUTHREACH Centres, Community Training Workshops and Senior Traveller Training Centres in October 1999. The overall response rate was 60% or 85%. This is considered very good for a postal survey. However, readers should note that the numbers sitting refer to those surveyed and do not represent all of those entered for the Junior Certificate through the YOUTHREACH channel.

The programme's success in helping participants to achieve certification goals is clear.

As regards the Junior Certificate, significant patterns may be seen, such as the traditional strength in practical subjects, the high percentage of A grades in the six most popular subjects and the fact that over half the centres had some level of involvement with the Junior Certificate. 93% of the centres offered English and 83% Mathematics, with 16% achieving A grades in the former and 14% in the latter.

Regarding NCVA certification, the emphasis on Communications and Personal Development are notable, and consistent with national policy priorities, for example regarding literacy. The flexible nature of the certification also lends itself to a needs-based approach.

As in previous years, we believe that these results will bear close study by those concerned with educational disadvantage. The young people attending YOUTHREACH Centres, CTWs and STTCs are among the most educationally marginalised young people in our society. The centre teams must perform a complex balancing act in responding to the wide range of presenting problems they encounter and in providing an appropriate range of learning options for their clients. That they do so to the extent indicated in this report is a significant achievement, and we congratulate them and the young people unreservedly.

We will be surveying the other certification outcomes for the programme in due course as part of the overall monitoring of the programme in its various modes.

Finally, we wish to acknowledge the analytical and presentational skills of Sarah Ryan, who made sense of the data for us.

Dermot Stokes, National Co-ordinator, YOUTHREACH, Dept, Education and Science

Guss O'Connell, National Co-ordinator, YOUTHREACH, FAS

Gerard Griffin, National Co-ordinator, Senior Traveller Training Centres (D/ES)