Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Government, I welcome the opportunity to close what has been an insightful and informative discussion about this important matter.

The many issues raised and statements made today will feed into the Department's ongoing commitment to the provision of funding and other supports to the primary school system. As the Minister, Deputy Foley, said, the Government is aware that costs and funding can pose a real problem for schools. I repeat that the Government and the Department of Education, in particular, are constantly working to address this matter and to enhance the financial and other supports available to schools. As the Minister also said, measures are being constantly reviewed and revised. I will speak in some more detail now about some of those.

This month sees the issuing of the second tranche of primary school capitation funding for the 2023-24 school year. This represents a full restoration of capitation to pre-2011 levels. While I do not wish to pre-empt the outcome of any future budget negotiations or fiscal parameters agreed by the Government, the Department of Education will continue to seek to prioritise the funding required to meet the ongoing costs of running schools.

Ancillary funding has been mentioned in a similar context. I emphasise that those schools that have seen their ancillary grants reduced are in no way disadvantaged by the reduction as the amount that their grant is now reduced by equals the amount they previously paid to secretaries. That cost is now funded directly by the Department through its payroll and there is no net difference for schools.

Correspondence issued to all schools on 20 December 2023 provided details of these arrangements for the period from September to December 2023. Further correspondence issued on 26 April 2024 setting out the position for the period from January to August 2024. Schools have been advised that work and engagement is ongoing to identify a method of standardising the reduction to the ancillary and school services support fund, SSSF, grants for the longer term where school secretaries are being paid via a payroll operated by the Department. Engagement will take place with school management bodies in order to discuss these arrangements to ensure they are as reasonable and as fair as possible for all schools. Further details of these arrangements will be provided to schools as soon as they become available.

Further to the free schoolbooks initiative, as this scheme is now implemented in every recognised primary and special school, it is expected that schools have used the funding provided in the 2023-24 school year to purchase stocks of schoolbooks and other classroom resources. Many of these items are now available to schools for reuse in the 2024-25 school year and in future school years. The funding allocated to the scheme in the 2024-25 school year takes account of this.

In budget 2024, over €47 million was allocated to continue implementation of the school books scheme at primary level. The payment per pupil for the 2024-25 school year is €80. Payments totalling €44.7 million were made to schools under the scheme in May 2024. It is expected that over 563,000 children and young people in 3,230 primary and special schools will benefit from this scheme in the 2024-25 school year.

Special schools that have students enrolled in junior cycle programmes have received funding at the junior cycle per capita rate of €309 per student as set out under the new junior cycle schoolbooks scheme. A total of 3,230 primary and special schools will receive the administration support grant from this week, the week commencing 24 June, at a total cost of €2.2 million.

The digital strategy for schools, along with other initiatives, is constantly under review. As part of the review of the national development plan, the Department's aim is to provide better clarity and certainty for schools on the timelines for payment of minor works and ICT grant funding. The Department will also continue to provide broadband connectivity to all schools through the schools broadband programme at an annual cost of some €13 million.

On the subject of special education, as well as the significant increases mentioned in the number of teachers and SNAs allocated to schools over the past number of years, there has been an increase in the number of schools that have registered to run a summer programme in 2024. More than 1,700 individual expressions of interest have been received from schools seeking to run this year's summer programme. In 2023, over 1,400 schools participated in the summer programme. All of the measures for the 2024 summer programme, including the non-pay grant, have been designed to maximise the number of schools and children taking part in the school-based programme.

I will talk a little about the new special education teacher and SNA allocation model. There have been significant increases in the number of teachers and SNAs allocated to schools over the past number of years. There has been no freezing of allocations and schools that require additional resources receive them, as the recent SET reviews demonstrate.

The Department commenced a review of the SET model in late 2022 to ensure it is meeting the changing needs of children in special education. In the 2023-24 school year, over 60% of exceptional reviews for SET teachers resulted in additional resources being provided. In the same school year, over 68% of SNA reviews were successful.

I also emphasise that complex needs as a criterion has not, in fact, been removed. However, the data which was used since 2017 from the CDNTs, and which is no longer routinely available, is being replaced by high-quality verifiable education data. The complex needs of children are now supported through the educational teacher needs profile of each school. The Department is very much aware that additional data is available in individual schools and a key focus of the roadmap for SET allocations is to develop an accurate and verifiable system to capture such data.

The use of the primary online database will be investigated as a vehicle for such data.

The Department has already committed, in consultation with education partners, to examine an ongoing continuous improvement process that can give schools more input into identifying the need in their school in the most efficient way possible. Almost 1,300 new special classes have been sanctioned over the past four years. For the coming school year, 3,000 special classes will operate in primary and post-primary schools. Seven new special schools have been established in recent years and another four special schools will open in counties Meath, Kildare, Wexford and Limerick for the coming school year. Capacity is also being expanded in a number of existing special schools. Budget 2024 provided funding for up to 400 new special classes and 300 additional special school places. As part of the review of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004, mentioned by the Minister, an open day will be held in September to gather final feedback from all stakeholders. This review will serve as the foundation for the updating of the Act to ensure a solid legislative basis.

Schools receive a range of supports to assist them to support children who are beneficiaries of temporary protection or are in the international protection scheme. Schools are provided with extra English as an additional language teacher allocations. They are also allocated additional temporary special educational supports and a range of supports and well-being resources from NEPS. The motion also references resources for refugee and asylum-seeking children for which schools receive a range of supports. Schools are provided with extra English as an additional language teacher allocations and are also allocated additional temporary special educational supports, and a range of supports and well-being resources from NEPS.

In the area of teacher supply, as well as the budget 2024 measures reflecting the Government's commitment to ongoing investment, further initiatives to address teacher supply changes include 610 additional places on initial teacher education programmes for primary level over the academic years 2023-24 and 2024-25; ensuring flexibility in initial teacher education programmes to allow student teachers to support schools; the 3,700 student teachers currently registered under the Teaching Council's route 5, which is the highest number ever; and encouraging retired teachers to provide substitute cover resulting in a significant increase of 49% in teaching days provided between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 school years. A new communications campaign began earlier this year to encourage retired teachers to return to teaching. The Teaching Transforms campaign continues to promote the teaching profession and encourage students to follow a career in teaching. The campaign uses digital, radio and video media and is supported by a dedicated webpage. The measures in the primary sector have contributed to the lowest ever teacher allocation ratio in primary schools with a 10% reduction in the average student per teacher ratio between 2017 and 2023. The new pay deal will mean that teachers' starting salary will increase to €46,000 rising to a maximum of €85,000 per year, which compares well internationally. Starting pay of €46,000 will be almost €20,000 higher than the 2011 rates. The Department of Education continues to engage closely with education stakeholders to develop further innovative measures to address teacher supply issues.

The motion calls on the Government to commit to making schools VAT-exempt bodies or allow them to claim VAT concessions or refunds. The situation is that schools pay VAT but, as with all charities, they are not allowed to claim funds off VAT. There is a VAT compensation scheme for charities that it is possible to avail of.

As the Minister said, the Department of Education has published a paper on the OECD's Education at a Glance report. This briefing paper outlines how through using the alternative measure of GNI*, education expenditure in 2020 as a percentage of GNI* stood at 5.8%. This compares favourably with the OECD average for educational expenditure as a percentage of national income, which stood at 5.1% in 2020. The document also looks at Ireland's spend on education as a percentage of total Government spending. This also compares well internationally.

I think I need to conclude there.

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