Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 March 2024
347. Deputy Niall Collins asked the Minister for Education what actions she has planned to deal with calls from a number of primary school principals in Tallaght for enhanced supports for disadvantaged schools under DEIS plus classification; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11540/24]
View answerMy 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 these universal supports, the DEIS programme provides a targeted and equitable way to address concentrated educational disadvantage that promotes equity and has benefits for students.
My Department now spends over €180million annually providing additional supports to the region of 1,200 schools in the DEIS programme. This includes an additional €32m allocated following my announcement to extend the programme to an additional 322 schools from September 2022. This now means that approximately 240,000 students or 1 in 4 of all students are now supported in the programme.
Within the DEIS programme, the highest levels of resources are targeted at those primary schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage. Schools in this category are accorded DEIS Urban Band 1 status. There are currently 306 primary schools in DEIS Urban Band 1, including 79 primary schools who were included in the band for the first time from September 2022 as part of the extension of the programme. Schools in this band receive a more beneficial staffing schedule, home school community liaison support as well as access to the school completion and school meals programmes. Schools in DEIS Urban Band 1 also receive a DEIS grant that reflects the schools’ high levels of educational disadvantage and priority access to the support of the National Educational Psychologists Service (NEPS).
My Department is continuing to undertake work towards achieving its vision for an inclusive education system that supports all learners to achieve their potential. It also recognises that we need to target resources to those schools who need them most. That is why my Department is undertaking a programme of work to explore the allocation of resources to schools to address educational disadvantage. To support this work my Department have invited the OECD Strength Through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies Project to review the current policy approach for the allocation of resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage in Ireland. This review will provide an independent expert opinion on the current resource allocation model for the DEIS programme and, drawing on international examples, inform a policy approach for an equitable distribution of supplementary resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage attending all schools, both DEIS and non-DEIS.
