IN A primary school in north Dublin, a junior infant child has missed more than three-quarters of the school year so far. He comes in one or maybe two days a week, before disappearing again. Sometimes he isn't seen for weeks on end.

This child is not sick and he doesn't have any learning difficulties. His teacher has reported that he seems quite bright. He's only five years old, so he's not sitting in a park with his mates.

The problem is that his parents are simply not getting him to school. And when this child does make it in, he is way behind his schoolmates and his teacher has to re-start his education all over again. His older brother is in third class and in the last five years has been present for approximately one third of his education.

"These children haven't a hope if this situation continues, " said the school principal, who has religiously reported the situation to the National Education Welfare Board (NEWB), which is responsible for school attendance, on several occasions this year.

"We have told them that it is a family trait and we have had problems with the older brother. We have done everything we can ourselves to help the children, but there's only so much we can do.

It is incredibly frustrating that nothing can be done."

This is just one of hundreds of cases around the country where children are missing unprecedented numbers of school days before intervention is being received. The word amongst teachers is that a child's situation may be at crisis point, but until it is an "intensive" situation . . . complete non-attendance of school . . . then the resources are not there to deal with it.

It is estimated that every year, at least 1,000 children under the age of 13 are dropping out of school, particularly during the transition between primary and secondary school. School absenteeism has long been recognised as one of the biggest factors in early school leaving, but the NEWB is incredibly under-staffed and struggling to see the vast majority of children at risk.

If a child misses over 20 days, they have to be reported to the NEWB, who will then step in and assess the situation, talk to parents and set up a programme to get the child's attendance back on track. But according to the Irish National Teachers Organisation, a child missing 50 days of school a year hasn't a hope of being seen and there are children who have missed over 100 days of school without intervention.

'The frustration is incredible' Aoife Redmond is the principal of St Joseph's Junior National School in Ballymun, which has been designated as DEIS Band 1, the most disadvantaged status there is. In her school, Redmond has children under the age of eight who have missed over 50 days of school this year. One child did not come back from the Christmas holidays until 29 January. Despite repeated requests, none of these children have been seen by a welfare officer.

"There's only one officer for the entire area of Ballymun and she is absolutely swamped, " said Redmond. "She simply can't get around to us because she has so many other cases, and that's not her fault. But it's falling to us, the school principals, to try and promote attendance and the frustration level amongst teachers is incredible."

When children are asked why they have missed so much school, Redmond said they will mostly say they were at home "playing". "We have every support imaginable, " she said. "We have a breakfast club and we provide lunch for the children.

All the parents have to do is get their children out of bed and to school, but in many cases we're trying to break a vicious circle of behaviour and we can't do that without help."

According to Norah Gibbons, advocacy officer of Barnardos, which recently published a report on how to prevent early school leaving, the home-school liaison scheme needs to be expanded to support parents.

"When children are missing that amount of school, there is clearly a problem at home, " she said. "If the parents themselves had a poor experience at school, then they can often under-estimate the importance of it for their children.

Without knowing, they may often send out the message to their children that going to school isn't a positive experience. The resources need to be put in to ensure that families are getting the support they so badly need."

According to INTO general secretary John Carr, the NEWB is so under-resourced that there is only a skeleton service in place. "School attendance is the most important contributor to educational success but it is clearly not a priority for this government, " he said.

'We are stretched'

The NEWB was established in 2002 by the Department of Education to ensure that every child in Ireland attends school, or at least receives adequate educational training in the case of home schooling. It has been estimated that to provide a fully operational service, there needs to be 300 welfare officers on the ground.

At the moment there are 94. Last month, minister for education Mary Hanafin announced that an additional 15 staff will be appointed this year, bringing the total number to 109 . . . still just one third of what is needed.

"We really welcome the announcement of the additional officers, " said Eddie Ward, chief executive of the NEWB. "We now have a presence in most counties in the country. There are 800,000 children in school in Ireland, which means there is one officer per 12,000 children. We are stretched, we have big case loads and we cannot deal with every referral, but we do believe we are getting there."

Last year, 32 parents of 17 children were prosecuted for failing to get their children to school.

Ten of these cases resulted in a maximum fine of 635; the remainder were struck out or have been adjourned.

In the same period, 183 school-attendance notices (the first step in legal proceedings) were issued in respect of 128 children not attending school.

"Legal proceedings are only ever used as a last resort and a judgement call is made by the welfare officer as to whether this kind of action will act as a wake-up call to the parents or if they need help of another kind, " said Ward.

"Some parents may be drug addicts, they may be alcoholics or suffering from mentalhealth problems and in cases such as these, prosecution is unlikely to help the situation. But in a very few cases, parents need to know that we have this power and will use it in the best interests of the child."

'It's terrible to see'

Everyone agrees that NEWB officers do a fantastic job on the ground. The problem is, there isn't nearly enough of them. Barnardos has called on the government to put 14m into the service to get it fully operational as soon as possible.

But for school principals and teachers struggling to deal with problem children every day, there seems to be no positive conclusion in sight.

"It's like chipping away at a big block with absolutely no results, " said Redmond. "Children become very aware early on if they are seen as different, and when they miss so much school, they stand out when they come back in. They need learning support immediately, which marks them out further.

"The workload they need to catch up on becomes too big a gap and they stop trying to learn. It's terrible to see a child so young missing out for no good reason."

The junior-infant boy in the north Dublin school will almost certainly repeat the year, as he has learnt next to nothing so far. What frustrates his principal most is that he has been told that if the child was in the adjoining secondary school (which has disadvantaged status), he would most likely be dealt with immediately.

"Early intervention is key, but here I'm being told that this child can't be helped until he's 12 years old, " he said. "It will be a miracle if he makes it that far. You see him coming in scared and crying, while all the other children have adjusted.

This boy and his family need intervention. Help and support should be available to them because they're at crisis point. It's a terrible shame that it isn't."

HEADING SOUTH FOR TERM TIME. . . HEADING SOUTH LONG TERM

A PUBLIC survey on attitudes towards school attendance carried out for the National Education Welfare Board (NEWB) at the end of last year revealed that the majority of people are aware of the impact of poor school attendance.

However, almost one in six parents take their children out of school at term time, with nearly half of these citing cheaper holidays or fares as a reason for doing so, the study found. Twentynine percent said that during term time suited the family, while 17% of parents said it was the only time they could get off work.

Eighty-two percent of parents surveyed believe that missing more than 20 days of primary school has a negative impact on a child's school work. Fifty-two percent of respondents said the main reason children miss school is because their parents are "not bothered". Thirty percent said illness was the main reason, while only a tiny minority see school absenteeism as being related to the child's socioeconomic background.

The research, conducted by MORI Ireland for the NEWB, also revealed that most parents believe that absenteeism at primary level is less important than at second-level education.

"We must work towards reducing the levels of avoidable absences by children whether due simply to casual nonattendance or holidays during term, " said Eddie Ward, CEO of the NEWB.

"Good school-attendance patterns are developed at primary school and if children are given the message that it is not okay to miss school during term time, they could avoid falling into a pattern of missing school, which can lead to poorer exam results and early school leaving."