A CALL for second level schools to provide creche facilities for students who are single mothers has drawn a sceptical reaction from principals and the Department of Education.
The suggestion came from Mr Nick Killian, president of the parents' association for vocational schools and community colleges. Creches in schools with a high number of single mothers would help tackle the "crisis of early drop outs", he said.
However, principals say there is no call for creches. "Certainly, there are school students who become mothers, but not many. But I've never heard of this being raised as a problem before," said Mr Ray Kennedy of the Secondary School Principals' Association.
The Department said it had never been asked to provide child care facilities in schools. A spokesman explained that, through programmes in sex education and civics, it aimed to deal with the problem of teenage pregnancies "from the other end".
Fianna Fail's education spokesman, Mr Micheal Martin, said the idea was worth investigating, but he did not believe there were any schools with enough single mothers to merit opening a creche.
A pilot programme involving the provision of creche facilities is being developed as part of the Youthreach programme for early school leavers, usually aged from 15 to 17 years.
The co ordinator of Youthreach, Mr Dermot Stokes, said about one female participant in to left because of pregnancy or the birth of a child, and about 6 per cent of the women already were parents before they joined the programme. There were about 900 females on the course.
However, Mr Stokes said, the evidence was that young women tended to have children after leaving school, rather than during their time there. There were curious" clusters of teenage births around the ages of 15 and 18.
Creche facilities in centres dealing with those aged over 15 were considered standard in other European countries, he added.
In an address delivered on Saturday, Mr Killian also attacked the "sexual soft porn" in some teenage magazines. Parents were allowing teenagers to spend their "hard earned" money on magazines containing explicit advice on sexual positions just because "squeaky clean" Boyzone was on the cover.
"Our teens seem to be more than we can handle, most particularly when it comes to sex, so we stay silent, opt out, and leave them to their own devices."
Mr Killian, who is also the spokesman for the National Parents' Council Post Primary, attacked national sports organisations for failing to "tackle or highlight in any way" the drugs problem facing young people.
The drink laws are being flouted, he added. "Publicans and disco owners are breaching the licensing laws week in, week out."
