Ms Caitriona O'Brien:

I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to attend and the opportunity to present to the joint committee. Members will have noted the links in this area from the presentations made by my colleagues, particularly that of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

The Department of Education and Skills has a strong focus on tackling educational disadvantage and social inclusion generally. I will speak about the DEIS programme, which is the central plank of the Department's policy in this area. While some of those present who have a background in the education sector or in working with children will be familiar with the programme, it is useful to give some context to the later discussion. DEIS, Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools: An Action Plan for Educational Inclusion, is the policy instrument of the Department of Education and Skills for addressing educational disadvantage. Since its introduction in 2006, DEIS has focused on addressing and prioritising the educational needs of children and young people from disadvantaged communities, from preschool through to second level education. Its frame of reference is based on the definition of educational disadvantage in the Education Act 1998, according to which educational disadvantage involves the "impediments to education arising from social or economic disadvantage which prevent students from deriving appropriate benefit from education in schools". These impediments are complex and multifaceted and are underpinned by a range of factors, which includes family poverty.

Research carried out by the Educational Research Centre prior to the introduction of DEIS found strong evidence that the disadvantage associated with poverty and social exclusion assumes a multiplier effect when large numbers of pupils in a school are from a similar disadvantaged background. This is known as the social context effect. In recognition of this, DEIS included a standardised system for identifying schools on the basis of their relative levels of disadvantage and prioritised supports in schools serving the most disadvantaged children and young people. The objective of DEIS is clear; it provides supports to schools to combat the underlying cause of educational disadvantage, in other words, to level the playing pitch in order that young people have an opportunity to derive maximum personal benefit from the education system. Enhancing attendance, progression, retention and attainment are central elements of DEIS. Interventions include a concentration on literacy and numeracy from an early stage, strong links between home, school and community, strong links between schools working co-operatively together and added value from links between education and other services working with children and families.

A key focus of current policy is to prioritise investment in favour of those most at risk and optimise access, participation and outcomes at every level of the system for disadvantaged and marginalised groups. Therefore, the additional resources available in DEIS schools should be used to achieve good outcomes for those children who are identified as the most at risk of not achieving their potential through education.

It should be noted that DEIS is part of a continuum of interventions to address educational disadvantage. These include early childhood care and education, through the universal preschool provision scheme, early child care education, ECCE, second chance education and training and access measures for the minority of our young people, who for various reasons leave education early without the knowledge and skills they need to support them in later life. A further element of this continuum is the ongoing development of provision for pupils with special educational needs.

Since the implementation of DEIS, there has been an ongoing evaluation of the programme and the findings indicate encouraging evidence that the DEIS programme is having a positive effect on tackling educational disadvantage. Separate Educational Research Centre, ERC, and inspectorate reports published in January 2012 show some encouraging results to date. For example, there have been significant improvements in both maths and reading ability in primary schools. Progress appears most marked among pupils with the lower levels of achievement, which is encouraging. Practically all of the primary schools reported significant measurable improvements in the attendance levels of their pupils, while the majority of post-primary schools had effective measures in place to improve attendance. There is increased positive engagement with education on the part of parents in school life and in their children's education. A recurring theme when one talks about this area is that the involvement of parents in the school life and education of their children and the valuing of education by parents is key to this issue.

The reports also point to where improvements are needed in some schools with regard to planning and outcomes. Acting on this, in 2012 the Department issued revised guidelines on the appropriate use of the DEIS grant, emphasising that DEIS funding should be used to obtain the outcomes identified in the schools DEIS action plan, the importance of each school having a DEIS action plan and that it should be available for inspection by the Department's inspectorate. In other words, schools should do what the DEIS programme asks them to do. The Department also emphasised in grant payment letters issued to all DEIS schools the link between inputs and outcomes in the context of the evaluation of the programme. It is also surveying selected schools on the spending of their DEIS grant in order to identify supports and interventions which are key to the schools' delivery on their DEIS action plans.

During 2013, the ERC will undertake further research in DEIS post-primary schools to review the implementation and outcomes of DEIS supports at post-primary level. It will also carry out further testing at primary level to ensure that the longitudinal element of the evaluation can be maintained, adding to data already collected in 2007 and 2010. The Department is focused on ensuring that existing resources are deployed in the most cost efficient way and it is currently undertaking a review of the delivery of the existing programme, with a view to ensuring that schools make the best use of current funding. The findings of completed and current studies will provide the basis, in terms of programme implementation and outcomes, to inform an exploration of future policy on educational disadvantage generally. While the outcomes of DEIS are largely positive and achievement levels are improving, the performance in DEIS schools still falls below the standard norm. This points to a requirement for continued support for these schools, to build on the gains identified in the evaluation of achievement testing.

I would like to give the committee some idea of the kind of money made available for educational disadvantage so as to illustrate the financial commitment being made by the Department to tackling this area. Overall funding in 2012, on interventions ranging from early childhood to supports for third level students, was in the order of €690 million. Some €94 million is allocated to the DEIS programme to support over 165,000 pupils. This funding provides for reduced class sizes, a home-school liaison service, the support teacher project, DEIS and book grants to individual schools. DEIS schools also receive further support from the colleague Departments of Children and Youth Affairs and Social Protection through the school meals programme and the school completion programme. I will be happy to deal with questions on this in our discussion. The Department has also been involved in some of the PE initiatives that have been in place for a number of years and will also be involved in the area-based poverty initiative to be rolled out later this year.