Ms Chris Kelly:

I would like to address the allocation. As Ms Tobin said, the allocation is based on the level of disadvantage in the school and the number of targeted students. Consequently, in some schools where there are smaller enrolments, one will cluster the schools in order that they meet that level. We would normally say 100 targeted pupils per HSCL. At present, there is no plan to increase that but under the delivery of equal opportunity in schools, DEIS, action plan, various provisions, including the HSCL, are being looked at. We are looking at re-clustering HSCL as well, for better alignment with the school completion programme, SCP, and other school clustering arrangements.

As for supporting transitions, a key goal under the DEIS plan is supporting transitions at every level, including from post-primary to third level and further education. One of the actions in this regard is that there would be formal arrangements with HSCL, guidance counsellors, further education providers and access officers at third level to ensure that transfer programmes and transitioning are improved and streamlined for students who may not be able to do it on their own.

On the question of what is working well, as I said earlier the monitoring and evaluation framework we are trying to develop aims to look at all the individual components. We know from research already on DEIS that it has had a very positive impact. What we do not know is what individual pieces of DEIS are causing that, whether it is the suite of programmes or individual components of it. We need to look at that. However, we do know from the evaluation to date, conducted by the Educational Research Centre, ERC and by our own inspectorate, that DEIS is working overall.