Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ar dtús, gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí agus na Seanadóirí ar an gComhchoiste um Oideachas agus Scileanna agus go háirithe an cathaoirleach, an Teachta Fiona O'Loughlin, don obair a bhaineann leis an "Tuarascáil ar Iniúchadh an Choiste ar Chostais Scoile, Áiseanna Scoile agus Príomhoidí atá ag Teagasc". Gabhaim buíochas freisin leis an 20 páirtí leasmhar a chur ionchur ríthábhachtach ar fáil don phróiseas seo. Is léiriú é seo ar an luach gur féidir le coiste Oireachtais a sholáthar nuair a bhíonn sé gafa go cuiditheach le gach páirtí leasmhar chun eolas agus tuairimí éagsúla a shainscagadh. Is cinnte go gcuideoidh obair an choiste eolas a sholáthar agus cur le treo polasaí agus straitéise na hearnála oideachais.

The report is wide-ranging, spanning a number of different areas, including the school building programme, the retention of green spaces, the workload of teaching principals and back to school costs. I am glad to note that much progress has been made on these matters since the public hearings held by the joint committee in late August 2018. By way of context, I will set out first a broad picture of the capital investment under the school building programme. The school building programme, as Deputy O'Loughlin pointed out, is an integral part of the Government's Project Ireland 2040 vision. Under Project Ireland 2040, the education sector will receive approximately €12 billion over the period 2018 to 2027. This includes some €8.8 billion for the schools sector and €2.2 billion for higher education infrastructure. In 2018 and 2019 alone, my Department has invested more than €1.1 billion capital investment into the school building programme. We continue to make progress to increase the infrastructural capacity in the schools sector nationally in order to meet demographic and other demands over the short to medium term.

The roll-out of Project Ireland 2040 in the school sector has involved overall construction activity during 2018 and 2019 of 466 projects, which are expected to deliver more than 40,000 permanent additional and replacement school places and replace almost 600 prefabricated buildings. The pipeline of projects for delivery under the school building programme involves 367 large-scale projects and approximately 800 projects for delivery under the Department's additional accommodation scheme. These projects are working their way through advanced stages of architectural design, planning permission and tendering processes and will be delivered as part of the €8.8 billion investment under the national development plan.

The current status of school projects being delivered is listed on a county-by-county basis on my Department's website and is updated regularly as the projects go through the various stages. In addition, my Department's design team procedures require monthly progress reports to be provided to school authorities to keep them updated on the status of their projects. My Department also regularly updates the Joint Committee on Education and Skills in respect of the programme for establishment of new schools.

I will now deal with some of the key recommendations under each of the four themes of the report, starting with the recommendations relating to the school building programme. The report makes reference to ensuring that "provisionsnecessary for good planning are put in place to ensure that adequate school facilities are provided to meet added demands on school places when developments are taking place". By way of forward planning, my Department carries out nationwide demographic exercises to determine where additional school accommodation is needed at primary and post-primary level. Requirements for school places can be met in a number of ways, including by utilising existing capacity, adding capacity to existing schools or by new school provision. The challenge for the Department is to identify where needs will arise and the most efficient and effective way of providing for same. To conduct the demographic exercises, the Department uses a geographical information system to divide the country into 314 school planning areas. Data from a range of sources, including child benefit data from the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and the Department's school enrolment databases, allow the Department to map where children are living or attending school. This information provides a degree of certainty in projecting demand in an area in future years and identifying demographic trends in relatively small areas.

New residential developments also have the potential to significantly alter demand and timing of demand in an area. For this reason, the Department also takes into account planned housing development to help identify where pressure for school places across the country will arise. However, this process is not an exact science given the many variables involved with the construction and occupation of new housing developments. The pace of completion of such development can be subject to change depending on local circumstances as well as at a macro-economic level.

The Department continually reviews its approach to forward planning with the aim of ensuring, as best as possible, that school accommodation needs are provided in tandem with residential provision. Since April 2018, when the Government announced plans for 42 new schools from 2019 to 2022, the Department has implemented a number of measures aimed at strengthening the demographic analysis process. The first involves enhancing our engagement with local authorities. Local authorities now provide more detailed information to the Department on planned residential development than had been available previously. The second involves additional engagement by my Department with patron bodies relating to their local knowledge on school place requirements. In that regard, I acknowledge the leadership shown by many people in the Dublin 15 area over the past year in identifying new school provision for special education, in particular the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and his team in that area.

The third measure involves putting a system in place to enable a national inventory of school capacity to be captured through the existing annual enrolment returns by individual schools to the Department in the primary online database and the post-primary online database. This year, schools have been requested to provide information in respect of overall demand for school places and available capacity within their schools. This is the first year of this initiative and the approach taken will provide an effective and efficient mechanism for enhancing our up-to-date knowledge on capacity across more than 3,000 primary schools and more than 750 post-primary schools.

Ceann eile de na moltaí tábhachtacha a tháinig ón gcoiste seo ná go gcuirfí soiléireacht bhreise ar fáil do scoileanna maidir le híocaíocht an deontais do mhionoibreacha. Tá mo Roinn tar éis dul i ngleic leis an gceist seo cheana féin. Faoi Thionscadal Éireann 2040, tugadh soiléireacht do scoileanna go n-íocfar deontas na mionoibreacha i Nollaig nó Eanáir den scoilbhliain. Tuigim go rímhaith an tábhacht a bhaineann le deontas na mionoibreacha do bhunscoileanna.

I am conscious that primary schools are waiting on minor works funding. The Deputies will receive this information but I want to assure them that the commitment given a number of weeks ago that the minor works funding will be paid in the first fortnight in December will be met.

Several relevant points arise relating to the recommendations on the retention of green spaces. The policy emphasis in the Project Ireland 2040 national planning framework is for compact growth and delivery of more housing and infrastructure within the existing built-up areas of cities, towns and villages on infill and brownfield sites. Given this policy emphasis and the cost of sites in urban areas, it is important that demographic pressures can be managed in a manner that fully utilises the capacity of school sites. This may involve extensions to existing schools or, where technically feasible on larger sites, the creation of a campus development that facilitates more than one school on a site. A campus development can also create opportunities for sporting or other facilities to be shared between schools.

The Department's design guidance on the provision of green spaces as part of school building projects is not prescriptive in terms of area for green spaces but indicates that, where space permits, grass kick-about practice areas can be provided. The Department's design guidance makes provision for the inclusion of hard play areas. The logic underpinning this approach is to provide a play and sport facility for ongoing and intensive use by schools on a continual basis throughout the year.

On the wider point of the retention of open or green spaces for use by schools, there are a number of matters to note. The zoning criteria applied and the type of development permitted within a certain zoning are matters for the relevant local authority. Local authorities are required to consider the potential need for school provision in the context of any proposed residential development. Where new developments are proposed, provision is generally made at development or local area plan stage for schools as part of the consultation process with my Department. My Department is included among the prescribed bodies to which local authorities are statutorily obliged to send draft development plans, local area plans or proposed variations to development plans for comment or observations. In it observations my Department will highlight, as appropriate, school requirements as informed by its demographic projections and knowledge of existing school capacity in areas.

Recommendations on the workload of teaching principals is an important area that I continue to raise publicly. In the recent budget we looked at easing the pressure. This was not my preferred place as the Minister for Education and Skills but obviously it was in the context of a no-deal Brexit. Since my appointment as Minister, I have met several teaching principals and I appreciate the pressures they face.

The Irish education system has certain characteristics that have influenced the evolution of the principal's role. The distribution of the population necessitates a relatively large number of small primary schools. While management and administration duties of principals in smaller schools are smaller in scale than those of larger schools, they must be undertaken in addition to full-time teaching duties. Earlier in the year, I hosted a symposium on small schools. This gave me an opportunity to restate the Government's commitment to small schools and to open dialogue with all the key stakeholders. The purpose of this work by the Department is to develop a policy proposal to help support and strengthen small primary schools throughout the country. The work now under way on small schools seeks to build on this in a sustainable way. I will continue to engage with the main partners through the primary education forum and my Department's small schools steering group to develop a new policy of supports for small schools.

Each school with a teaching principal receives an allocation of days, known as principal release days, to allow the principal time to undertake administrative duties. My Department pays for a substitute to be employed by the school to facilitate the administrative functions of the teaching principal. Budget 2020 is the third successive budget to provide for an increase in the number of principal release days. One additional release day will be allocated to each school with a teaching principal with effect from 1 September 2020. This will bring the number of release days to 19, 25 and 31, depending on the size of school. This is an increase from 14, 18 and 22 days, respectively, since 2015. In addition, a further four additional release days are allocated to schools with special classes. There are arrangements in place for schools to cluster principal release days into a full-time post. This will assist teaching principals to work more effectively and plan their release days for the benefit of the school. To assist the principal, each school has a middle management structure consisting of a deputy principal, and one or two assistant principals, depending on the size of the school. These were formerly special duties posts. Flexibility in identifying and prioritising the evolving leadership and engagement needs of the school and in assigning and reassigning post-holders to specific roles and responsibilities to meet the evolving needs of a school is an essential feature of this school leadership model.

The committee made recommendations on back to school costs. I will focus on three areas, namely, capitation funding, the voice of the parent and the student parent charter, and voluntary contributions.

I fully recognise the need to improve capitation funding for schools. The Action Plan for Education includes a commitment to restore capitation over a three-year period as resources permit. Budget 2020 provided for a further 2.5% on top of last year's 5% increase in standard capitation funding for primary and post-primary schools. This increase will apply from the start of the 2020-21 school year. In addition to the increase in standard capitation, the enhanced rates of capitation payable in respect of students with special educational needs will be increased by 7.5% from the start of the 2020-21 school year. This is to match the total increase in standard capitation rates of 7.5% provided in 2019 and 2020. The combined increases provided in 2019 and 2020 means approximately 40% restoration will be achieved. The special class grant payable at post-primary level for students with mild or moderate learning difficulties in special classes will be increased from €191 to €205 from the start of the 2020-21 school year.

The Department published Circular 32/17, which details the measures to be adopted by schools to reduce school uniform and other costs. This circular provides parents with a strong voice in ensuring costs are always kept to a minimum. Schools also need to be more accountable to parents generally and we need greater levels of communication, engagement and transparency in how schools serve their communities. There are great examples of this transparency and good engagement and communication.

Many of our schools wish to put the area of voluntary contributions on a legislative footing. In this regard, full transparency on the use of any voluntary contributions is vital for parents. Under the Education (Student and Parent Charter) Bill 2019, which recently completed Committee Stage in the Seanad, every school will be required to provide information to parents how any voluntary contributions are used. This legislation will require every school to consult parents and students and publish and operate a student and parent charter. Each school will draw up the charter following a set of national guidelines. The policy of voluntary contributions is a policy of long standing and may be sought from parents provided it is clear to parents that there is no compulsion to pay and that a child's place in the school or continued enrolment is not dependent on a willingness to make a contribution.

Mar fhocal scor, gabhaim buíochas arís leis an gcoiste agus le gach páirtí leasmhar de bharr an ábhair ríthábhachtach sa tuarascáil seo. Deimhním don Teach go bhfuil mo Roinn tar éis díriú go cúramach ar na nithe atá sa tuarascáil seo agus go ndéanfar dul chun cinn ar na ceisteanna atá ardaithe ann. Gabhaim buíochas leis na Teachtaí as ucht ceisteanna tábhachtacha a ardú, agus as ucht a bhfreagracht don tuarascáil seo. Beidh mé ag súil le tuilleadh plé a dhéanamh ar na ceisteanna sin. Gabhaim mo bhuíochas agus m’aitheantas do bhaill an choiste faoi choinne na díograise agus an tsárobair a rinneadar thar chúpla bliain. B’fhéidir go ndéanfaidh siad cúpla moladh eile anocht fosta.

See this speech in context