{"id":11793,"date":"2025-03-04T14:25:31","date_gmt":"2025-03-04T14:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/?p=11793"},"modified":"2025-03-04T14:25:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T14:25:31","slug":"taoiseachs-promise-to-reform-school-completion-programme-must-be-kept","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/ga\/taoiseachs-promise-to-reform-school-completion-programme-must-be-kept\/","title":{"rendered":"Taoiseach\u2019s promise to reform School Completion Programme must be kept"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Taoiseach must keep his promise to correct employment and governance structures for School Completion Programme (SCP) staff, according to Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Deputy Cummins, who is the party\u2019s Education spokesperson, said:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cToday\u2019s ESRI report, the second of its kind, has been welcomed by School Completion Programme (SCP) workers around the country &#8211; 783 schools with students at risk of leaving school early take part in the programme.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cHowever, we must keep the pressure on the government to implement the employment and governance structures which have been promised since 2012, essential measures to achieve parity and fairness for those in the sector.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cDuring his maiden speech in June 2020, Miche\u00e1l Martin said that this would be treated as a matter of urgency, that it was one of his top priorities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe&#8217;re now in March 2025 and nothing has happened.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe School Completion Programme is not broken, nor is the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) programme &#8211; what\u2019s wrong with them is the fact that they\u2019re being neglected.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe government needs to comprehensively invest, resource and staff these programmes &#8211; cutbacks have never been restored from the austerity era, and pay must be adjusted to match inflation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThe DEIS Plus scheme must also be finalised as soon as possible as schools cannot wait any longer for increased support.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cAs a previous school completion coordinator for almost 18 years, I welcome the ESRI\u2019s continued SCP research &#8211; it shows how valued it is by our school community, youth workers and other agencies, statutory and voluntary.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI urge the government to finally implement these changes, which would put workers on an equal footing with equivalent TUSLA and Department of Education staff.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cIt is not fair that SCP staff are the most vulnerable staff members in the TESS structure, who in turn are working with the most vulnerable children in our education system.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">March 4th, 2025<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Taoiseach must keep his promise to correct employment and governance structures for School Completion Programme (SCP) staff, according to Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins. Deputy Cummins, who is the party\u2019s Education spokesperson, said: \u201cToday\u2019s ESRI report, the second of its kind, has been welcomed by School Completion Programme (SCP) workers around the country &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[540,218,581,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-children","category-education","category-jen-cummins","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Taoiseach\u2019s promise to reform School Completion Programme must be kept - Social Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.socialdemocrats.ie\/taoiseachs-promise-to-reform-school-completion-programme-must-be-kept\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"ga_IE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Taoiseach\u2019s promise to reform School Completion Programme must be kept - Social Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Taoiseach must keep his promise to correct employment and governance structures for School Completion Programme (SCP) staff, according to Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins. 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