In the annual calendar of Irish education there are two immovable feasts. One is the August celebration of Leaving Certificate results complete with pictures and stories of the highest achieving students.

Smiling young women and men who have achieved staggering numbers of A grades remind us 1980 school leavers that our shelf-life is limited and that the future is theirs.

The other immovable feast is the publication of data on school completion. Less pictures, more statistics, no smiles.

When I left school in 1980, I was part of the 60pc who made it to Leaving Certificate in that year.

The School Leavers' Survey published yesterday shows that were I taking the examination this year, I would be part of the 82pc who finished.

We have come a long way since 1980, and the progress made on including more students for longer in second-level schooling is something of which all of us working in Irish education should be proud.

Ours is one of the few education systems that does not offer a range of alternative types of education after compulsory schooling; in this scenario, the progress made is remarkable.

The fact that we seem to be unable, despite considerable efforts and many initiatives, to make that final push towards 90pc, or beyond, is worrying. Although, I think we should take some comfort from the fact that of those who do leave school before Leaving Certificate, around half are participating in some form of further education and training.

We know a lot about these early school leavers, about their gender and family backgrounds, about their attendance at school before they left, and about how well they did when they were there.

We know them so well we can pick them out -- just ask any post-primary teacher -- while they are still in schools and place them at the centre of a range of initiatives designed to keep them in school for as long as possible.

And we can keep doing this, and they will keep leaving school, until we make that connection between the smiling faces in August, and the statistics of November.

If education policy-makers and researchers ask young people why they leave school early, and they tell us that they leave because of school, then we may need to swivel the spotlight away from those young people and their families and shine the light elsewhere.

We could shine it straight onto the schools that they leave perhaps? On the curriculum they said they find unchallenging and disengaging? On teaching and learning that did not connect, and on corrosive relationships with peer groups?

Other research tells us that some schools are succeeding in making connections with students, through working hard at supportive relationships, and promoting student well-being and achievement. They too deserve their place in the spotlight.

We could shine such a light, but I think it would only guide us to where we now find ourselves -- initiative after initiative to provide better connections between students and the school; alternative and often imaginative and creative approaches to curriculum for those identified as 'at risk' of early school leaving, all supported and led by hard-working, committed and sometimes heroic teachers; and school leaders who believe passionately in those 'at risk' young people and their families and communities.

If we want further illumination, I suggest we shine that spotlight on those already brilliant August smiles.

Shine it on those who have succeeded at school and for whom school has succeeded. Do not begrudge them their success, or belittle their incredible hard work and dedication in achieving as they did.

But the school system has also worked hard for them, it connected with them and they with it in a shared understanding of what success at school is, and how it can be measured, and how it is rewarded. It enabled them to shine.

Shine that spotlight, and consider whether their success has a price beyond the obvious one paid by them in hard work.

Consider whether the system that enabled them to shine kept others in the shadows, at the edges and on the margins.

Recent debate on how streaming in schools may advantage some students over others gave rise to just such questions, and some strong reactions that 'high achieving' children would be 'held-back' by others.

Discussions of polarisation in the school system, between 'inclusive' and 'exclusive' schools inevitably boil down to issues of August smiles and November statistics.

If we want more students to stay in school, they have to want to stay, but we have to want to keep them.

And we have to want schools that want to keep them.

Do we really? Or do we want more smiles, and sure, it's only statistics.

Anne Looney is chief executive of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA)

- Anne Looney