Our mission at Aspire is to work with children in Northern Ireland in poverty to help close the educational attainment gap that exists between rich and poor. Whilst our mission is academic focused, we also want to raise awareness of the stark reality of poverty in Northern Ireland and help remove the stigma associated with it. The stigma attached to poverty can cause families and individuals to not avail of help and resources when it is available due to shame and fear of judgement. This blog has been written, with this in mind, backed by research and our own expertise at Aspire NI. I hope this enlightens readers to the reality of poverty in Northern Ireland and it’s impact on young people through education and later life. Research and data sourced from: The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, The NI Audit Office, Child Poverty Action Group, Save the Children, and the Department for Communities Child Poverty Report.
In Northern Ireland around a fifth of children live in relative poverty. An unimaginable number, that frankly seems quite unbelievable in 2024. Unfortunately, it’s a very real number and young people and families across Northern Ireland know this reality all to well.
Definitions of Poverty
We should start with identifying some of the most prominent terminology associated with poverty, There is no single definition of poverty but again remember that poverty is a complex issue, every household and individuals situation is unique and should be treated as such.
Relative Poverty: individuals who have income below 60% of median incomes.
Material Deprivation: where you can’t afford certain essential items and activities
Destitution: where you can’t afford basics such as shelter, heating and clothing.
Persistent Poverty: When a family experiences relative income poverty for at least three years out of four.
What Causes Poverty in Northern Ireland?
Poverty rarely has a single cause and it can be difficult to separate causes and effects, however it is clear that factors including low wage, worklessness and rising living costs are significant drivers of child poverty (NI Audit Report, Child Poverty in Northern Ireland, 12th March, 2024). In Northern Ireland specifically, we have a unique and unfair advantage where there is no childcare support for working families. England, Scotland and Wales provide working families with parents of three and four year olds with 30 hours of free childcare a week. A report from Employers For Childcare found that the average cost of child care in Northern Ireland is £193 per week. This is more than one third of the average NI household income in 2021-2022.
How Poverty Effects Education
The long term effects of poverty can be extremely difficult to deal with, we can only speak with authority on how this impacts young people academically as that’s where our expertise lies.
The evidence shows that the gap in attainment between children growing up in poverty and their peers starts early and lasts throughout school. But the time they reach primary school, children from low-income families are already up to a year behind middle-income children in terms of cognitive skills.
For those who are Free School Meals, their achievement rate of five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C is 49.5%. Their peers, who are non Free School Meals eligible, their achievement rate is 24% higher. This a significant gap, and it’s why Aspire exists today, we believe all children should have an equal chance at education, regardless of their economic background.
As of the latest set of GCSE results in August 2024, for those young on the Aspire programme (who are all Free School Meal eligible) their achievement rate was 87%, bringing their achievement rate back in-line with their peers from more well-off backgrounds.
We have been able to prove year after year that the Aspire Programme works. We are proud of the results but constantly reminded of the amount of young people effected by poverty across Northern Ireland.
We currently have a waiting list of schools who could have expressed interested and could benefit from the Aspire Programme. The only thing holding us back from working with these schools is finances to employ more staff to run the Aspire Programme directly in these schools. We partner with funding bodies, independent donors, churches and local businesses to help us finance the programme, if you would like to learn more about the Aspire Programme click here.
What Can We Do About Poverty?
There are many charities across Northern Ireland and the UK as whole setup to tackle poverty directly and a lot of them are worth supporting. But, unfortunately, their are systemic issues at play which make tackling poverty extremely difficult. According to the Northern Ireland audit office £825m - £1bn is the annual cost of child poverty, and currently there is £0 ring-fenced budget for Child Poverty Strategy implementation. The last Child Poverty Strategy ended in May 2022 which had very little measurable impact on poverty levels. Other factors like the UK governments 2 child limit and unaffordable childcare will inevitably keep low-income working and non working families alike in poverty. We need a systemic change in order to make the quickest impact on poverty levels in Northern Ireland, but this is not something that we can rely on, so organisations like us at Aspire have to continue to grow our operations and open up the programme to more schools and more young people across Northern Ireland. We currently work with 350+ young people each week, we want to increase this to 1000 over the next 24 months. With support from individual givers, corporate partners, funding bodies and churches we are confident we can reach this number and help even more young people across the country. If you would like to learn more about getting involved visit - aspireni.org/get-involved.
