Fergus O'Dowd
Question:334. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Education if a response will issue to concerns raised by a school principal (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21732/24]
View answerTuesday, 14 May 2024
Questions (334)
Written answers
My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential.
Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Programme is a key policy initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post-primary sector.In March 2022, I announced the single largest expansion of the DEIS programme. This benefited 361 schools. The programme now includes in the region of 1,200 schools and supports approximately 260,000 students. 1 in 4 students and 30% of schools are now supported in the programme. This expansion added an additional €32 million to my Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the overall Department of Education allocation for the programme to over €180 million.The DEIS Plan is based on the premise that in order to have the maximum possible impact on providing opportunities for students most at risk of educational disadvantage, then extra resources need to be targeted as closely as possible at those students with the greatest level of need. This will involve further development of the existing DEIS programme, to create a more dynamic resource allocation model where levels of resources more accurately follow the levels of need identified by objective data.
My Department recognises that schools will require support to implement the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum, and acknowledges the additional costs associated with purchasing learning materials to support this implementation. Funding for schools to support the implementation of the new curriculum is currently under consideration.
With specific regard to the Primary Schoolbooks Scheme in Budget 2024 over €47 million was allocated to continue implementation of the schoolbooks scheme at primary level. On the 8th May I announced details of year 2 of the Primary Schoolbooks Scheme which provides at a minimum free schoolbooks, workbooks and copybooks to pupils in recognised primary and special schools. More than 563,000 pupils enrolled in approximately 3,230 primary schools, including over 130 special schools will continue to benefit from this scheme.
As the scheme is now implemented in every recognised primary and special school it is expected that schools have used the funding provided in the 2023/24 school year to purchase stocks of schoolbooks and other classroom resources. Many of these items are now available to schools for reuse in the 2024/25 school year and in future school years. The funding allocated to the scheme in the 2024/25 school year takes account of this.
Schools will receive €80 per pupil enrolled as of September 2023. It is open to schools to look at their requirements and plan their budget across each of the years collectively. They may choose to spend more than €80 per pupil in 6th class and in turn, spend less than that per pupil in 1st class. In other words, while schools will receive the money at the same per capita rate for all pupils they can choose to spread that expenditure differently across the years depending on the requirements.
As part of the on-going evaluation of the scheme, all schools will be asked to provide data on their expenditure in order to inform the guidance, implementation, costs and efficiency of the scheme for future years.