Half of second-level students have part-time jobs. It gives them cash, but it may also bring unwelcome problems. Louise Holden reports

Not many of us can afford to spend €300 a month on clothes. Vanessa Forde, a fifth-year student, routinely spends that much from her own pocket. She funds her weekly trips to Top Shop and Miss Selfridge from money she earns working 12 hours a week in a children's clothes shop in Liffey Valley shopping centre, in west Dublin.

Vanessa's spending habits are comparatively wholesome. She doesn't smoke or drink and her parents don't allow her out on weeknights. She admits that some part-time workers at her school, in Clondalkin, spend their money on drink. Fourteen of her 20 classmates have jobs, and some look distinctly bleary each morning, she says.

Up to half of second-level students have jobs. It's not a new phenomenon, but the scramble for service-industry employees, which peaked in 2001, contributed to a massive growth in the number of working school-goers.

And there's so much more for teenagers to spend their money on. Mobile phones, disposable high-street fashion, trips to Ibiza, body piercing: none of these featured on the shopping lists of teens a decade ago. Young people have always meddled with drink, only now they prefer half a dozen pricey pop cocktails to a flagon of cider.

Mixing school and work has at least two serious drawbacks, say teachers and parents. Secondary-school teachers report that many students are too exhausted from working to engage their brains in the classroom. According to Patsy Sweeney of the Second Level Support Service, paid employment is simply incompatible with a second-level curriculum that is designed to be full time. A part-time worker is a part-time student, she says.

John McGabhann of the Teachers' Union of Ireland agrees that term-time employment can cause problems. "I believe that working on school nights is genuinely incompatible with the achievement of potential. Every hour spent in part-time work puts pressure on a student's discretionary time. It's not just the hours spent that cause the problem, it's the money that accrues. Many students today have more discretionary income than their parents. There's a strong temptation to seek out social settings where money is spent inappropriately."

The second negative outcome is the change in family dynamics, according to parents' groups. Barbara Johnson of the Catholic Secondary Parents Association believes parents are exasperated by having to deal with children who have more money to spend than they do.

"It's impossible to control what they buy when they're spending their own money," she says. "We can have opinions about CDs with explicit lyrics, belly-button piercing and tattoos, but we can't control expenditure when the money is their own. They just get on the bus and go."

Johnson has outlawed term-time work in her home. She believes that many parents are innocent of the drawbacks - and that by the time trouble starts it's too late to row back.

Johnson accuses employers of exploiting the situation. "I've heard of many instances where employers refuse to take students on for the summer if they don't make a commitment to work during term time as well. It's particularly difficult for boys, as they are never asked to babysit. Girls at least can study while babysitting; boys can't study while stacking shelves."

Always on the receiving end of gloomy statistics these days, boys are faring worse when it comes to balancing school and work. According to a recent ESRI report by Selina McCoy and Emer Smyth, male students working 10 hours a week are more likely to drop out of school before Leaving Cert; the same applies to females working more than 10 hours in Junior Cert year. Boys are more likely than girls to work part time, say the report's authors, and are more likely to work at least 20 hours a week.

Phillip O'Connor of Dublin Employment Pact, an alliance promoting employment, believes the battle to keep schoolchildren out of the workforce has been lost and that it is time to refocus. "Schoolchildren working is a fact of life. The sooner we accept it and start dealing with it the better," says O'Connor, who led extensive research on school and part-time work in Dublin three years ago. "I believe that if it is managed properly, part-time work can be turned to a student's advantage."

As long as they work no more than 10 hours a week, avoid late hours and are encouraged to make responsible choices with their earnings, they can learn valuable lessons, he believes. The rise in underage drinking and drug-taking is an international trend that cannot be blamed on discretionary income alone, he insists.

"The single biggest expenditure quoted by participants in DEP's survey was on holidays abroad. Many of the young people that I interviewed were saving to go to Europe in the summer. This is a positive trend in my view. There's nothing to be gained by ranting and raving about this issue: teenagers are young adults, and if they are treated that way they respond with maturity.

"Parents can't tell young people how to spend their money, but if we keep the lines of communication open and offer advice on good money management it goes a long way. It's time we all took a more mature approach to our dealings with young adults."

Eleanor Petrie of the National Parents Council isn't so sure. "The way teenagers can spend money would take your breath away. They can earn €150 a week and blow it all on one or two nights' drinking," she says. "The work they are doing doesn't tend to offer much in the way of productive experience. They're usually the last to leave, left to tidy up, and can be exploited because of their age. They are exposed to all kinds of security and health risks by working in bars and late-night filling stations. They only get one shot at school. They'll be in the workforce soon enough and for a long time to come."

The Figures:

Leaving Certificate students in part-time employment: -  57 per cent

Junior Certificate students in part-time employment: - 35 per cent

Average weekly hours in employment: - Eight

Types of work: Supermarkets (20 per cent), restaurants/ fast food (13.9 per cent), pubs (11.7 per cent), babysitting (10 per cent), shops (8.7 per cent), factories (6.3 per cent), petrol stations (1.5 per cent)

Spending priorities: Entertainment, holidays, alcohol, cigarettes, CDs, clothes, contributing to the family

Sources: ESRI, 2002, Student Enrichment Services, 2003,

Dublin Employment Pact, 2000