Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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24. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will remove the cap on the expansion of the delivering equality of opportunity in schools programme, DEIS; if he will put in place the measures, suggested by the ERSI review of the programme, to taper funding and enhance supports for urban DEIS schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35411/16]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I am putting an urgent question to the Minister which follows from what schools are asking us. It relates to whether the Minister is committed to removing the cap on the expansion of the DEIS scheme. It is a fantastic scheme which was established by the Fianna Fáil Government in 2006. However, the scheme has not expanded significantly since then.

Will the Minister put in place what has been recommended by the ESRI? Is there an issue with the tapering of funding? Will that happen? Will there be enhanced supports for urban DEIS schools? When are we going to expand the scheme? Many schools have been established since the programme first began to operate and they have not had the necessary benefit of the DEIS scheme.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising the question and I appreciate his interest. I am always willing to acknowledge any good idea, regardless of their parentage.

The ESRI report referred to by the Deputy is an ESRI report entitled "Learning from the Evaluation of DEIS". It was commissioned by the Department. The ESRI report provides an overview of the information on the impact of DEIS supports for schools including evaluations undertaken by the Educational Research Centre and my Department's inspectorate as well as other international research.

The report considers a number of important aspects relating to current practice in DEIS schools, including ability grouping of students, guidance counselling and the potential to taper supports to schools. The key challenges and policy implications identified by the ESRI report for future policy are being examined in the context of identifying measures under a new school support programme.

This report, together with wide-ranging consultation conducted with key stakeholders, academics and practitioners, will inform the final measures to be adopted in a new plan for educational inclusion which I hope to publish before the end of the year.

While the Deputy is right that no new schools have been included in the programme since 2009, the process to review the existing DEIS programme is now nearing completion.

A new assessment framework is being developed using centrally held CSO and Department of Education data for the identification of new schools for inclusion. The inclusion of new schools under the school support programme will be considered in this context, and it will not be necessary for schools to make an application.

As I have already announced, it is my intention to publish the plan before the end of the year.

The review looks at all aspects of DEIS, including the range and impact of elements of the school support programme, particularly the scope for increased integration of services provided by other Departments and agencies in order to improve effectiveness.

Among the measures to be included in the plan are a series of pilot schemes that aim to introduce measures which have been shown to work well to improve results for disadvantaged children and students. The plan is expected to include targeted measures in the areas of: school leadership; school networks and clusters; teaching methodologies; integration of schools and other State supports within communities; and greater use of home-school community liaison services.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is right to acknowledge that since we established DEIS, a number of Governments have failed to expand it since 2009. That is a pity because between 2011 and 2013, I think 30 schools were established which have not even been given the opportunity to apply for DEIS status. Since the last identification of schools qualifying under DEIS criteria, communities have changed dramatically in some cases. Their socioeconomic profiles might have changed and they might be more deserving now than previously of the support - not even more deserving but rather more in need of it. The recent ESRI reports, as mentioned in the question and the Minister's reply, indicate that a significant proportion of disadvantaged students attend non-DEIS schools. This is a problem because the students involved do not get the extra supports and resources, which they require and which the State has found to be necessary, in a large proportion of those schools. I look forward to the publication of the Minister's plan but, more importantly, I look forward to more schools being accepted to the DEIS programme.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I take the point the Deputy makes. He will know that the process categorises different schools. There are 835 DEIS schools in total but it must be remembered that some of these are urban band 1 schools, which are particularly deprived. The insight relating to the DEIS scheme was to consider such schools, around which pockets of disadvantage could perpetuate themselves, and intervene in respect of them. The results have shown that DEIS schools are having an impact in improving standards in numeracy and literacy but they are not closing the gap with some of the other schools. Therefore, we are not just looking at extending the programme - although extending it to new schools is part of the plan, and the Deputy is right that some schools have not had the chance to apply - we are also trying to see whether we can do better within those schools and whether we can bring to bear initiatives that have been seen to work elsewhere. The pilot approach of seeking to get schools to clusters, perhaps with similar problems, is one I would like to see implemented. I can assure the Deputy that we will look in a scientific way at schools that did not get the chance to apply and include them in circumstances where need triggers that level of intervention.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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When can schools not currently part of the DEIS programme become part of it? Does the Minister have a timeline for that?

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Yes, it will be September of the 2017-2018 year. We have made some provision in the budget for this, envisaging new schools coming into the scheme. The methodology will not require, as was previously the case, the sending in of the percentage of parents with this or that feature or children with this or that feature. We will use CSO data we already possess in order that this can be done in a way that does not require the schools to gather such information. We hope it can be done pretty quickly and scientifically and that we will be able to start from September of next year.