Results 2,141-2,160 of 19,559 for speaker:Norma Foley

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: National Educational Psychological Service (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: My Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychological support to all primary and post-primary schools. This involves direct support in the event of a critical incident, access to national and regional support and development work to build school capacity to support students, access to a NEPS psychologist for responses to queries arising,...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Education Policy (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: Work is ongoing in my Department at present to develop a new policy for Irish-medium education outside of the Gaeltacht. This policy will build on the significant achievements of the Policy on Gaeltacht Education. In order to inform the development of the policy, a comprehensive public consultation process was conducted to seek the views of stakeholders including young people, parents,...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Amalgamation (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy that my Department has received a request from the Patron of the schools under reference for the amalgamation of the two schools. As the Deputy will be aware the decision making authority for school amalgamations belongs to the patron or trustees of a school, and this is subject to the approval of the Minister for Education. Any proposed change involves extensive...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Pupil-Teacher Ratio (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: I propose to take Questions Nos. 710 and 711 together. The latest figures in relation to pupil teacher ratio shows an improved ratio of teachers to pupils from 12.7:1 to 12.5:1 at post primary level, when comparing 2018/19 to 2022/23 school year. This compares favourably with the OECD average pupil teacher ratio which the latest figures indicate is 15:1. The average pupil teacher ratio is...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the 2023/24 school year over 161,600 children, including over 135,000 pupils travelling on primary and post primary services, 19,800 pupils with special educational needs, and 6,800 pupils who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine were transported on a daily basis to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the 2023/24 school year over 161,600 children, including over 135,000 pupils travelling on primary and post primary services, 19,800 pupils with special educational needs, and 6,800 pupils who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine were transported on a daily basis to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the current school year over 161,600 children, including over 135,000 pupils travelling on primary and post primary services, 19,800 pupils with special educational needs, and 6,800 pupils who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine are transported on a daily basis to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The School Transport Scheme is a significant operation managed by Bus éireann on behalf of the Department of Education. In the 2023/24 school year over 161,600 children, including over 135,000 pupils travelling on primary and post primary services, 19,800 pupils with special educational needs, and 6,800 pupils who have arrived to Ireland from Ukraine were transported on a daily basis to...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Funding (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: My Department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance, water rates and general up-keep, and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Accommodation (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy, that the school in question has submitted an application for capital funding, under my department's Additional Schools' Accommodation (ASA) Scheme for temporary extra accommodation to provide for two special education needs classrooms. The purpose of the Additional Schools' Accommodation scheme is to ensure that essential mainstream and special education classroom...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The school to which the Deputy refers was approved funding for a large-scale major building project. The project is devolved for delivery to Cavan & Monaghan Educational Training Board (CMETB). This project will provide an 8 classroom school and 2 SET rooms. I am pleased to advise that this project is at stage 4 of the architectural process. Works commenced on site in June 2023 and it...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The project to which the Deputy refers, has been devolved for delivery to Cavan and Monaghan Education and Training Board (CMETB). The brief for this project provides for a 8-classroom school, 2 SET rooms, Principals office and 1 combined resource / library area. The project is currently at Stage 3 of the architectural design process. At the end of May 2024, the ETB were given authorisation...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Cyberbullying Issues (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: I launched Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying on 1st December 2022. Cineáltas is dedicated to the prevention and addressing of bullying, cyber bullying, racist bullying, gender identity bullying and sexual harassment, among other areas, in schools. An implementation plan for Cineáltas was published on 10 April 2023 and commits to implementing each of the 61 actions contained...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The school referred to by the Deputy was approved to enter the departments pipeline of school buildings projects to provide the following accommodation: 8 x General Classrooms, 4 x Special Education Tuition rooms, a Music room, a Textiles room, an Art Room, a Project store, a Multimedia room, 2 x Science laboratories and a Preparation area, a Library and a General Purpose / Dining Hall. The...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school. Under the terms of the School Transport Schemes, children are eligible for transport at primary level where they reside not less than 3.2 kms from and are attending their nearest national school....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Transport (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The purpose of my Department's School Transport Scheme is, having regard to available resources, to support the transport to and from school of children who reside remote from their nearest school. Under the current terms of the School Transport Schemes, children are eligible for transport at primary level where they reside not less than 3.2 kms from and are attending their nearest national...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Facilities (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: I can confirm to the Deputy, that investment and expenditure on PE Halls is an element of the overall School Building Programme. The provision of GP rooms and PE Halls, at primary and post primary level respectively, and outdoor hard play areas, form part of the accommodation brief for all new school buildings. Almost 95% of the post primary schools that made 2020 Annual Schools Returns have...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: School Staff (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: My Department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary schools in the free education scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day-to-day running costs such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance and general up-keep, and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff....

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Special Educational Needs (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: My department works closely with the NCSE in relation to the forward planning of new special classes and additional special school places. There are now over 3,000 special classes in our education system providing places for over 20,000 students. We have also opened four new special schools for September 2024 and increased capacity in a number of existing special schools to ensure that more...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Schools Building Projects (23 Jul 2024)

Norma Foley: The school referred to by the Deputy was approved to enter my department's pipeline of school buildings projects to provide a 2 classroom Special Education Needs base, 12 Special Education Tuition rooms and reconfiguration of an existing staff room to provide a Home School Class Liaison room and new replacement staff room. The project has been devolved for delivery to the school authority. A...