IPPN

In their homework club in Dublin's north inner city, volunteers from the Society of St Vincent de Paul are helping teenage pupils with their maths.

Michael Lennon, a SVP volunteer who works for a pharmaceutical company, offers tuition to Junior Cert and Leaving Cert students as they grapple with equations.

Like hundreds of volunteers across the country Michael is giving his time to the project free of charge.

"I hope that it helps to boost their self-confidence,'' says Michael.

"I think that's what it's all about with maths.''

The pupils, who all come all from disadvantaged backgrounds, get the sort of one-to-one help that is rarely available in schools.

The homework club is one of over 50 similar low-profile operations run by SVP across the country.

Many of the volunteers are fully qualified teachers, students and graduates. Pupils generally attend the clubs once or twice a week.

"Many of the students would find it difficult to get their work done at home, because of their family circumstances,'' says Tony Rock, director of SVP's Ozanam House resource centre, which hosts the north inner city homework club. "They may not have a quiet space to work in.''

Among the students are "unaccompanied minors'' from Africa who do not have parents in Ireland. Without the homework club, they might receive little help with education outside school.

The extra tuition at the club helps these young students to overcome the language barrier and adapt to our second-level system.

The resource centre on Mountjoy Square is a hive of activity at seven in the evening.

On the top floor, students are being tutored, while on another floor, members of the centre's youth group are hosting a Christmas dinner for parents.

SVP is best known for the direct aid that it provides to hard-up families, particularly at Christmas.

At this time of year, the charity is preparing parcels of food and presents which will be distributed right across the country. At Ozanam House, there is a storeroom piled up with presents to be dispatched to families.

The society's active involvement in education is less well known, but is now considered just as important.

As well as the homework clubs, the society provides crèche and pre-school facilities, pays for school books, runs breakfast clubs, and helps out third-level students and those in adult education.

At Ozanam House, local people can do courses in computers, art and the English language.

The centre's manager Tony Rock hopes the adult education classes will eventually be recognised by FETAC, the further education qualifications body.

Increasingly, senior figures in St Vincent de Paul see education as the key to helping young people to escape from a cycle of unemployment and poverty.

SVP's vice president, John Monaghan, is passionate on the issue.

"If people from areas such as this (the north inner city) are to get good jobs they have to be educated.''

Monaghan, a professor of engineering at Trinity College, was incensed by the recent education cuts.

As he outlined SVP's approach to education, he did not mince his words about the withdrawal of certain grants to disadvantaged students, describing them as "insane''.

"The cuts make no sense at all, from a financial point of view, apart from anything else.

"If you look at inmates in Mountjoy Prison, you will find that the vast majority have very low educational attainment.

"The State is spending €90,000 on prisoners in Mountjoy, but if they spent money on the education of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, they would not have to be spending so much.''

Professor John Monaghan says there should be a new National Development Plan aimed at people, rather than infrastructure.

This would include education in its remit.

"By cutting back on education, the Government will help to reinforce a dependency culture that could last for generations.

"Those who leave school with no qualifications, or even with a Junior Cert, will find it increasingly difficult to get a good job and face the prospect of casual employment or life on the dole.

With no real career prospects and no hope for the future it would not be surprising if antisocial behaviour and crime did not appear an attractive career option for some young people.

"If that happens, then not only will the potential of these young people to contribute to their communities be lost, but as a State we will, at the very least, have to pay for additional welfare expenses and, sadly, even the cost of keeping them in prison.''

- Kim Bielenberg