Results 18,961-18,980 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Institutes of Technology (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The members to the Governing Body of the Institutes of Technology are appointed under Section 4 of the Regional Technical Colleges (Amendment) Act 1994.  While the legislation provides for me in my capacity as Minister to appoint members of the Governing Body, I as Minister, have no power to nominate the members to be appointed.  That onus is on the relevant Education and Training...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Educational Disadvantage (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: No schools, either Primary or Post Primary, have been added to the list of schools published on 13th February. In its initial application, the new identification model, which has been uniformly applied to all schools, has identified schools not previously included in DEIS, whose level of disadvantage is at the highest level. Accordingly, as a first step these schools will be included in...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Skills Shortages (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The Action Plan for Education was launched in September 2016 and the vision of the Plan is that Irish Education and Training across primary, secondary and third level should become the best in Europe over the next decade. The National Skills Strategy 2025 identifies Ireland’s current skills profile, provides a strategic vision and specific objectives for Ireland’s future skills...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Programme for Government Review (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: As the Deputy will be aware, the Government published a Progress Report on the implementation of the Programme for Government last December. A Second Report is close to finalisation and will be published by the Government shortly and an Annual Report will be published following the Government’s first year in office. In addition, earlier this year, I published an end of year review on...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: School Patronage (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I thank the Senator for raising this issue. I fully understand and support the ambition he has set out. As he knows, it is my ambition to increase substantially the diversity of offerings both at primary and at secondary level to reflect the growing preference of parents for more diversity in our education system.Earlier this year I indicated that nine new schools are to be provided at...

Seanad: Commencement Matters: School Patronage (4 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I can assure the Senator that my Department and I work with all patrons. We support Educate Together in its work as a patron, which is certainly recognised. Obviously, the Department cannot favour one particular group that is campaigning for a school because the process under which a school patron is selected is based on parental preferences. Everyone has to have an equal opportunity of...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I thank Deputy Byrne for raising this issue. The new identification model is designed to be transparent. Basically, it takes into account the children enrolled in the school and the places where they live and then the HP deprivation index is applied. As the Deputy knows, the variables involved in that index are demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate,...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: When Fianna Fáil was in Government and it was addressing this issue it did not use objective criteria. Its scheme was based on random collection of information. Political information was also brought to bear, which was not satisfactory. The current scheme is transparent. I have just explained to the Deputy how it is put together. In other words, the children in the school and their...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: It does not matter how many children are in the school, the same rule applies. In terms of the cut-off point, we use the same cut-off point to find the highest level of concentration. I would very liked to have been able to extend that to more schools but the budget I had available had to be used to support the areas with the highest level of concentration. As the Deputy knows, there was...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: DEIS Administration (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy misunderstands how this index is put together. The whole enrolment in a school is taken into account. We do not designate children as disadvantaged. We take the entire enrolment of the school and we develop a composite index for all of the enrolment in the school based on the areas from which the children come. They are based on objective, scientific criteria, including...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The new model of allocation is designed to more accurately reflect the actual needs in individual schools. It captures a more comprehensive range of needs in schools, including complex needs, measured learning difficulties and social needs, than the previous model. An additional 900 posts will be delivered to reflect this change. This year, more than half of special needs teaching...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I would like to clarify that no school will lose out. No school will see a child with complex needs lose any of his or her support. No diagnostic tests are required by the parents described by the Deputy to get supports from schools for the learning needs of their children. As the allocations are front-loaded, the big financial barrier that was in the way of parents is being removed. The...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: Special Educational Needs Service Provision (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: We are providing 900 additional resource teachers this year at a cost of €54 million. We are putting extra money and extra staff into resource teaching in a way that will ensure no school loses out. Schools that require a high level of support for children with complex learning needs, as identified by these tests, will get more. None of the existing schools will get less. This...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The report of the technical working group that was set up by the Teaching Council to formulate advice on teacher supply focuses on the development of a model of primary teacher supply and outlines the work that will be required in the future to establish a model of post-primary teacher supply. I intend to publish the report shortly. While the Department of Education and Skills has no...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: I acknowledge there is a problem in key subject areas, but there is no problem overall. Training of teachers involves about 3,800 students, which is split roughly half and half between post-primary and primary schools. About 1,600 teachers retire each year. There is a substantial net increase in supply each year. We are recruiting more now than we were. The current levels are far in...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: There is a difficulty because, as the Deputy said, people enter into subject areas without explicitly committing to a future in teaching. It is only when they do a masters that they enter the teaching channel. The working group examined whether it could introduce a model which could identify an objective intake for subjects such as chemistry, physics, maths or business studies that would...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Staff (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: We will always need maths teachers. We will produce a response to the report and a specific response to the STEM work done by Professor Brian MacCraith. That is on our agenda for the current year.

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: As he will see from my reply, the Deputy's depiction of the situation is a little inaccurate. The community national school model is a new model of multidenominational school which is not that well-known among the public. However, I believe it has a bright future ahead of it and a major role to play in providing choice to parents in the future. Community national schools are...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment took over responsibility in 2012. As I said in my reply, it is currently undertaking a review of that particular patron programme. I also said it is evolving, as the Deputy rightly said too. Increasingly there is no period of the day during which children are withdrawn. However, parents are offered the opportunity, if they wish, to have...

Ceisteanna - Questions (resumed) - Priority Questions: School Curriculum (5 Apr 2017)

Richard Bruton: Perhaps the Deputy is deliberately choosing not to hear what I am saying, but the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment is commencing a review of the very programme the Deputy is talking about. It took over responsibility in 2012 and is commencing a review of that programme. I support the change in practice whereby children in most community national schools remain intact as a...