Innovative iScoil gets share of €1m backing from state fund

iScoil helps young people who leave school early to continue their education and achieve qualifications, writes Emmet Ryan

Marianne Checkley, chief executive of social enterprise iScoilFergal Phillips

A social enterprise built around online learning is aiming to expand significantly over the next year on the back of a share of a €1 million pot in funding through the Social Innovation Fund.

iScoil was one of four awardees of a state and Google supported €1m tech-for-good award run by Social Innovation Fund Ireland.

iScoil targets young people who leave school early across Ireland for a broad variety of reasons, looking to find ways to help them achieve qualifications and progress into further education and employment.

“It’s all about access to education and opportunity. There’s a significant number of young people in Ireland, over 3,000, who leave school without any qualifications and before they reach 16,” Marianne Checkley, chief executive of iScoil, told The Sunday Business Post.

Checkley demonstrated the work iScoil is doing at the Dublin Data Summit earlier this month.

“We wanted to come up with a solution that was able to reach any of them in any circumstance or need. Early school leaving is a complex issue, so for whatever reason a young person can’t maintain a classroom situation we wanted a solution that could reach all of them,” she said.

“It’s not just about online learning, that’s not new or innovative at this stage. It’s about our teachers being able to build relationships with each of the students and build individual education plans, using technology to adapt content to different interests, needs, and abilities.

“We know it works because, to date, over 85 per cent of our students consistently each year get a qualification and progress on to further education and employment,” she added.

“At the moment we have about 55 to 60 students each year. We’ve worked with around 350 students to date so we have a really strong evidence base of success.

“We have teachers all over from Barcelona to the United Arab Emirates to Mayo.”

Prior to iScoil, Checkley travelled a lot in South America, working extensively with NGOs. It was her time there, particularly seeing the impact education could have, that led her to developing iScoil when she came back to Ireland.

“It came out of seeing the energy for the work out of what I was doing with disadvantaged communities in South America, seeing the potential that could be lost. After a few years over there, I came back to Ireland, I realised access to education was an issue here in Ireland all over the country and it can touch any home,” said Checkley.

“It started off as a pilot of a project from Britain called Notschool. It was a research project that we took a lot of learning from.

“At the time it was only for young people in their homes but we saw real potential for systemic change because we developed, out of that, a bridge between formal and non-formal learning.”

On top of home learning as an option, young people in the iScoil programme can go into youth services or agencies and learn online in youth centres. The organisation has frameworks in place to gather evidence of personal development programmes.

The reach of iScoil has been limited up to now due to the scale of the task at hand for a relatively small organisation. The cash injection awarded earlier this year has proven an important and timely boost to iScoil’s efforts.

“The last six months have been game changing. That has come through the award from Thinktech and the Social Innovation Fund. They have seen our potential, we have massive demand that we can never meet.

“We have skills in certain areas but needed help in areas like organisational growth and strategic planning. They have connected us in with all of that, it was like a Swat team descended on iScoil and put some shape on us,” said Checkley.

Up to now, the organisation has been supported by the Department of Education and Tusla, with both bodies looking to increase their involvement with iScoil.

“Both of those are looking at iScoil as their response to school-leaving. We have huge potential with demand and a stronger organisational base,” said Checkley.

“It’s grown all over and organically. We have centres in the midlands, Dublin, Limerick, and rural pockets around the country. We’re in about 12 counties at the moment but our ambition is to grow to be a service that can respond to demand on-demand.”

Checkley sees significant potential for iScoil over the next 18 to 24 months and she is confident the body can grow to a point where it can manage the demand for its services.

“We’re hoping to grow very quickly; 60 is still a small number compared to the demand out there, with over 3,000 young people in this position each year. We want to be a national service and we have a scalable model so we can provide a high-quality service that works across the country,” said Checkley.

“Growth isn’t just in terms of numbers. There are people who are over 16 who want to continue learning. We find with iScoil students when they come out, that they are more equipped and self-motivated learners so they can go onto further education.”

That bridge between formal and non-formal education is an area Checkley sees as something iScoil can teach to bodies across Europe.

“There’s huge potential for iScoil, and Ireland with it, to be a leader. This bridge needs to be made more effectively and we have proof on how to do it. There can be a cynicism around technology but our model is not just about them as a student, but as a whole person. We want to get to know the students individually and get to know their whole needs. That can influence European policy and action,” she said.

“This month we had a group over from Finland who were really interested in what we are doing. That’s a feather in our cap because if you are getting a group from the Finnish education system, which is so highly regarded, to see what you are doing then you are doing okay. We see potential for Ireland to be a leader in this field.”

The iScoil chief executive said the benefits offered by IT can be used effectively with existing local and state bodies to enhance the opportunities for disadvantaged young people.

“Data and technology have such huge potential for social impact. We know and we’re very confident that we have a very deep impact on lives,” said Checkley.

“When I came back here I got to know the issue from the ground up. That was important, to see what the real issues were and hear the voices of young people. I got to know the landscape with services and agencies. A multi-disciplinary and multi-agency approach is key to iScoil. This idea of sharing and collaborating can sometimes in education be challenging but now I hope we can really influence policy and systems change,” she said.

“That’s an aspiration that you need to manage as you have to be able to hold a mirror up to the system as well. We want this group of marginalised and isolated young people to be able to progress, to give them a voice to be heard, and allow them the confidence to do that.”