Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On Deputy Doherty's contribution, it is perfectly understandable why there may be primary schools in an area which have DEIS status and post-primary schools which do not have the same status. The Deputy referred to the levels of deprivation within the rural area as a whole. Part of the assessment process consists of an in-school assessment in respect of the levels of educational attainment within each individual school, the pupil-teacher ratio within the school and pupil data - in other words, the ongoing success or lack of success of students within a school. Therefore it is perfectly understandable that there may be a primary school which has poor scores in those areas but that those scores improve when the children move into a post-primary school because that school is run on a more successful model.

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