The schoolwork of many pupils is suffering because parents no longer have time to help children with homework in the evenings, a new research study has found.
The 260 pupils involved in the study said that having their parents at home with them more often would provide the biggest boost to their school life.
The work, by independent researcher Dr Katherine Zappone, found that parents and teachers now have less time than ever for one-on-one contact with children.
She presented her findings yesterday to the Forum on Primary Education, which is taking place at St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin.
Dr Zappone said that during the last few years more families required two earners to meet everyday household costs, and this was having a negative impact on children's schoolwork.
She said that the opportunity parents had to spend time doing homework with their children was shrinking all the time. The children were most concerned to know "who is going to help them when they go home," she said.
The research project, Achieving Equality in Children's Education, was conducted on behalf of the St Patrick's Educational Disadvantage Centre.
The project also noted that teachers often did not have time for one-on-one attention because of the demands placed on them within their schools.
The research, which involved more than 200 teachers and 200 parents, was carried out in 17 schools around the State.
Dr Zappone said that it showed a difference in opinion between parents and teachers in relation to education. "For parents, the top priority for children's education centred on how children were treated in the classroom, with the majority saying it was a priority that teachers treated children as individuals and gave them a voice in the classroom. For the teachers, 71 per cent said that the home environment and parental involvement was the most important."
However, the most pressing issue, according to Dr Zappone, was the need to tackle the gap between rich and poor, because this was having the most negative effect on the quality of children's education.
One of the survey's key recommendations was the setting up of a task force to examine how social and economic policies might be changed so that educational inequality could be reduced. According to Dr Zappone, this task force could be set up as part of the Statutory Committee on Educational Disadvantage.
"The direct connection between Ireland's social inequality and the quality of education received by our children is most evident in the literacy achievements of children across different schools," Dr Zappone said.
"Children from schools in disadvantaged areas consistently achieve a lower level of literacy proficiency than children from non-disadvantaged areas. Unless we tackle our social inequalities and the growing gap between rich and poor, we are never going to meet targets already set towards achieving quality education for all."