At present, Transition Year is available in 75 per cent of Irish second-level schools and just under half of all students opt to do it.

The Transition Year programme has three main aims:

• To educate for maturity with emphasis on personal development, including social awareness and social competence.
• To promote general, technical and academic skills, with an emphasis on interdisciplinary and self-directed learning.
• To educate through experience of adult and working life as a basis for personal development and maturity.

A report by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) shows that students who do Transition Year tend to get significantly higher points in the Leaving Cert. Taking social background into account, the average CAO points advantage is 25, and the dividend is even higher among middle-class students.

The ESRI research also shows students who have done Transition Year are more likely to go on to third-level education.

The year also benefits students in terms of their social and personal development, according to Dr Gerry Jeffers, lecturer in education at NUI Maynooth.

"The whole idea of Transition Year is to extend the learning environment beyond the classroom. It has to be a hands-on experience," he says.

"For biology, you are taking students to the sea shore; for art, you are bringing them to the gallery to see the paintings."

But all this costs money, he adds.

"In practical terms, students have to get a bus, and trips often require more than one teacher. With the cutbacks, there is a danger that the more ground-breaking, adventurous features of transition year will be dropped.''

Under the Budget provisions, schools were paid a proportion of the €100 grant to last them until December. From now until the end of the school year, they will rely on the small increase in general capitation grants to schools - money which is not ring-fenced for Transition Year.

"The real problem will come with next year's programme, when there will be no grant at all. Some schools will be deciding whether they can still afford transition year,'' said Noel Buckley, Transition Year co-ordinator at Presentation Secondary School in Clonmel.

Noel Merrick, principal of Naas CBS and president of the Joint Managerial Body for Secondary Schools, pointed out that it is not just the ending of the grant that is affecting Transition Year.

"We have fewer teachers in schools as a result of the Budget. So we have to look at how many we have in Transition Year.

"There is also the issue of substitution cover for teachers on field trips for Transition Year. That has gone. So we are relying on the goodwill of other teachers to cover for them when they are away on a trip.'' (Source: Irish Independent)