The figures speak for themselves. "It's a good investment," says Aíne Hyland, the woman charged with putting some shape on a system to tackle educational disadvantage - a system too long at the mercy of ministerial politics and start-stop initiatives. Anne Byrne reports

Educational disadvantage has always been popular with ministers for education. It provides the opportunity to launch new programmes and initiatives, with catchy titles such as the Breaking the Cycle pilot project, Bridging the Gap, the 8-15 Early School Leaver Initiative, the Stay in School Retention Initiative, the Support Teacher Pilot Project, and, just recently, Giving Children an Even Break by Tackling Disadvantage.

And while the schemes have multiplied, it seems disadvantage continues to thrive. As Minister Woods recently said: "I am very concerned that there remain very substantial issues, arising from social or economic disadvantage, which prevent students from deriving full benefit from education in schools."

Many of the initiatives, past and present, have provided real benefits to students. The problem is lack of co-ordination. There is a lack of co-ordination of the different Department of Education and Science inititatives and a lack of co-ordination with initiatives originating in other government departments, such as health and justice.

Some schools are benefiting from up to seven different schemes. Great, but they have to be assessed for each scheme, and later, the results must be evaluated, making for masses of extra work and an overlap of resources that could be better targeted.

Equally, some very good schemes have floundered on the rock of the pilot phase - initiated by one minister for education, they are never given full status by his or her successor.

However, it is just possible there is light at the end of the tunnel. This comes in the form of a soft-spoken, dynamic woman who is prepared to speak her mind and entertain radical proposals. Vice-president and Professor of Education at UCC Aíne Hyland has been appointed to chair the new, statutory Educational Disadvantage Committee, as well as a larger Forum to Address Educational Disadvantage, which will sit in early July. The first job of the committee is to get a handle on the various initiatives. "We need a better overall national co-ordinating structure and a more coherent local co-ordinating structure. That shouldn't be too difficult to achieve.

"Next, we need to look at community integration. Health, youth, community and education may all be targeting the same family, but in an unco-ordinated way. They're almost competing.

"I don't want to be negative - in spite of the system, there can be good local co-ordination, but it's down to some outstanding individuals. The system needs to change. Education has to sit in with other schemes, and not continue to be separate."

She will also begin to collate the evaluation reports on the various schemes to date. "A lot of these are not in the public domain. For example, I have never seen the Home School Community Liaison report. A school principal at a recent meeting showed me the report on the 8-15 scheme - I hadn't seen it before. All of these evaluations will be made available to our committee," says Hyland.

However, she says it is important to be aware that not all outcomes are measurable. "With the right supports, schools can become very exciting places, with a sense of happiness and creativity. Literacy may not be improved, but attendance may be up, punctuality increased. These students may be more likely to become involved in lifelong learning or may become entrepreneurs or work in creative jobs. My expectation is that, out of these evaluations, we won't actually see a huge improvement in literacy. That has been the international experience... the results may be more long-term.

"In Ireland, we have no long-term studies going over 20, 30 or 40 years. No political party is interested in a 30-year study." Yet, they may be interested in the financial aspects of the equation. Hyland says 19,300 (£15,200) is spent on a child in primary education, 26,600 (£21,000) to the end of the child's junior cycle, and 61,700 (£48,600) on a student who completes a three-year university degree and higher diploma. The people who don't make it through (the potential early school-leavers) are owed an investment, she says. "They have a moral right to this money. Think about this: one year in jail costs 89,000 (£70,000), the whole of a child's educational life costs a lot less than that. It's a good investment."

NESF figures show 18 per cent of the age cohort are not doing the Leaving Certificate and 3 per cent are not completing the Junior Cert. Compared to previous decades, Hyland says, "this is a phenomenal advance. Programmes like the Junior Certificate Schools' Programme have helped, but I believe there is a hard core of 15 per cent of people who find sitting in a school classroom unpalatable. We need to be radical about what we can do for these."

She suggests that a more flexible mainstream schooling system, with credits and part-time schooling options, might work, though this must be done in such a way that it does not open the floodgates. It should be aimed at students who can't cope with a full day or a full week at school. "Above all else, it shouldn't be all or nothing. At the moment, if a person leaves, there is no way to come back in."

The membership of the 20-strong committee was recently announced. It is due to meet for the first time soon. The membership of the forum has yet to be announced. A director of programmes to tackle disadvantage in primary schools has yet to be appointed.

And while primary schools have got teachers and money under the latest scheme, Giving Children an Even Break (a three-year, £26 million initiative benefiting 2,276 primary schools to varying degrees), the support team of 10 teachers has yet to be appointed.

While the advent of the new committee has been widely welcomed, a spokesman for the TUI voiced a worry that may be at the back of the minds of many people who have seen committees come and go, with reports compiled and duly ignored. "The committee needs the teeth to recommend resource allocation rather than simply being a talking shop and a sounding place, a place for 'good ideas', without the ability to implement targeted measures," the spokesman said.

Hyland is no stranger to public service and high-profile committees. She chaired the Commission on the Points System, providing a thorough overview of the issues, and a set of recommendations. The retention of the points system was achieved, but a number of recommendations remain outstanding.

Of this new committee, Hyland says she is "very optimistic, very hopeful".