James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy very much for raising this very important issue of the extension of access to the junior certificate school programme digital libraries to those schools that joined DEIS after 2022.

The junior certificate school programme is a national programme sponsored by the Department of Education and National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA. Introduced in 1996, it is a social inclusion programme that is aimed at students who are identified as being at risk of being socially or academically isolated or at risk of early school leaving before the then junior certificate has been achieved.

One of the initiatives under the JCSP is the JCSP demonstration library project. School librarians work as part of a network of librarians in the JCSP demonstration library project. Within the demonstration library project, there are 32 professional librarians employed by the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, CDETB, based in 30 schools that operate the library facility. They are managed by a senior librarian. Together with key school staff, librarians are responsible for drawing up and implementing library strategies to tackle the literacy difficulties experienced by many JCSP students. Each year, each library receives a grant from JCSP. The grant funds literacy and numeracy initiatives, book buying and resources for the library. Expenditure is approved in advance by the senior librarian.

The JCSP digital library is a centrally managed online e-book and e-audiobook lending library that is free for students and staff in all JCSP or DEIS schools. The collection consists of a wide range of teenage and young adult titles to suit all year groups, interests and ability levels. In addition, the library hosts collections of titles to support teacher professional learning and staff-parent book clubs. The collection currently consists of 10,500 unique titles, with multiple copies or class sets or both of many of these, bringing the overall total to more than 45,000 items. More than 600 titles are available for simultaneous use, meaning they are always available to borrow without wait lists or holds. New titles are being added to the collections on an ongoing basis. To date, more than 100,000 individual students and 9,000 staff from more than 220 schools have been set up with library membership. Borrowing levels are increasing year on year, with over 84,700 items borrowed from the library from 2021 to 2022, which is a 47% increase on the previous year.

In 2023, the JCSP programme received total funding of €3.6 million from the Department of Education. An amount of €2.1 million was with regard to salaries of the network of librarians in the JCSP programme and €1.5 million was provided for programme costs.

As part of the implementation of the Framework for Junior Cycle 2015, it was agreed to carry out a review of the JCSP and consider the extent to which the needs of students undertaking the JCSP are met through the junior cycle. The work of a review group established to progress this was paused as a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and work is now recommencing.

Library space is provided as standard as part of all new primary and post-primary school buildings and as part of some school extension projects. The standard provision at primary school is a combined library and resource space of 66 sq. m. For schools of 32 classrooms and more, two such spaces are provided. At post-primary level, a single library space is provided where the size is determined in proportion to the planned number of pupils at the school.

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