School attendance amongst pupils has dropped significantly since the pandemic, a new report has found.

More than 25% of all primary school pupils and 20% of all second level students have missed 20 or more school days in the 2022/2023 school year.

The figure is even more stark for kids in disadvantaged areas with 42% of primary school pupils and 30% of post primary students in disadvantaged areas missing 20 school days or more.

The Department of Education’s Inspectorate report for 2021-2023 noted that school attendance internationally has been significantly and negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Utter dismay"

On Newstalk Breakfast, presenter Ciara Kelly said she thinks this is one of “the worst things” she has “ever seen in a news item”.

“We read the papers every morning and I read that this morning with utter dismay,” she said.

“This, to me, is very clearly a result of lockdown - it was different before the pandemic and it is different now.

“We have seen the effects of lockdown there in motion.

“We are coming up to a COVID inquiry and what I believe we need to be asking [is] was the cure worse than the disease?”

"Ramifications and fallout"

Ciara said she was alarmed during the debates on the run up to the general election that all the party leaders discussed about COVID-19 was the nursing homes.

“None of them are actually looking at the very premise of how we manage the disease,” she said.

“We've seen school attendance has never recovered - it has been fractured permanently since the lockdowns, we have seen anti-social behaviour on our streets like we've never seen before, hostile city landscapes, we've seen social development [issues] and mental health issues in young people, we've seen social anxiety in old people.

“We have seen ramifications and fallout from the lockdowns, not from the pandemic, not from COVID-19 – [but] from our actions over COVID-19 that we are living with to this day.”

"At the expense of young people"

Ciara said that during the pandemic Ireland protected our old people and “that was a good thing” but we “did it at the expense of young people”.

“You cannot, in my view, unravel the fabric of society, take down all the scaffolds that prop up a functioning society the way we did, and not have this result,” she said.

“I suspect that Gen Alpha are going to be carrying the scars of this for the rest of their days.

“I don't actually know that we can undo what we did - and we did significant harm - and that is not discussed properly.”

Irish efforts

Co-presenter Shane Coleman said the report details the efforts that have been attempted by the Irish education system to get kids to school.

The report does say that there has been efforts by the Irish education system, including learning friendly environment, offering rewards, prizes for attendance, etc. and young people reported the limited value of these incentives,” he said.

Shane said he “totally” agrees with Ciara and he hopes that the COVID-19 inquiry deals with some of these issues.

“Whether it does or not I actually think that lesson has been learned personally but my worry is what we do about these kids now that aren't going to school,” he asked.

Shane was particularly worried about nearly half of kids in primary school and socially deprived areas missing 20 days or more of school.

Split image of an empty classroom (R) and Ciara Kelly (L).