Results 19,801-19,820 of 32,583 for speaker:Richard Bruton

Priority Questions: Student Retention Rates (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: There are initiatives that are proving successful. This is about looking at the individual students, asking why they drop out and seeing what has gone wrong. Some of the access programmes have been very successful because they support students right through their transition and perhaps offer help with supplementary studies. Sometimes mathematics might be a problem, for example, for...

Priority Questions: Student Retention Rates (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The Deputy has raised a number of issues. With regard to guidance counselling, 66% of the guidance provision will be back in place by this coming September. It is hoped this will equip young people to make better choices. The Minister of State, Deputy Halligan, has outlined the ambition to treble the number of places on apprenticeships and traineeships over the next four years. This would...

Priority Questions: Back to School Costs (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: My ambition is to make the education and training service the best within a decade. To deliver on my ambition to be the best, we have to improve information and complaint procedures for parents and students, particularly in relation to costs. I want to give parents a strong voice in ensuring costs are always kept to a minimum. My Department recently published circular 32/2017, which...

Priority Questions: Back to School Costs (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: I am glad the Deputy welcomes this measure. Each year, the Irish League of Credit Unions outlines the pressure on parents in terms of school costs. Surveys carried out by my Department have shown that the principles I have put into this keen cost approach are ones that parents generally support. The type of issues we will be looking at in terms of whether a school is compliant include...

Priority Questions: Back to School Costs (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: What we are doing is introducing fairly practical measures to establish compliance with these principles. We are also introducing a parent and student charter and we are giving parents more say in the decisions that schools make. We are trying to reach a situation whereby everyone feels it is in the interests of the school and the parent group to ensure that costs are kept to a minimum in...

Priority Questions: Student Grant Scheme Eligibility (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: I thank Deputy Pringle for raising this issue. Under the terms of my Department's student grant scheme, grant assistance is available to eligible students attending approved third level courses in approved institutions. An approved course is a full-time undergraduate course of not less than two years' duration or a full time postgraduate course of not less than one year's duration pursued...

Priority Questions: Student Grant Scheme Eligibility (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: By way of background, there is an element of international consistency in the way we do this. I understand that all countries adopt a similar approach. Supports for higher education programmes, but not PLC-type programmes, is the consistent practice across most member states of the EU. If one introduces a scheme that extends support to one EU country, one is under obligation to provide a...

Priority Questions: Student Grant Scheme Eligibility (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: There is an issue of reciprocity. If Ireland provides certain supports for participation in a college overseas there is an expectation that a citizen from overseas has the right of participation in an Irish college. There is a quid pro quofor any extension in this respect and it is not as simple as deciding to pick a country or college and extending support to that place because of its...

Priority Questions: School Accommodation Provision (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The original question does not include all those issues. The Deputy may find the reply a bit generic. In the process leading to ministerial announcements of new schools,my Department carries out nationwide demographic exercises at primary and post-primary level to determine where additional school accommodation, including new schools, will be needed. When this process has been completed, I...

Priority Questions: School Accommodation Provision (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: A huge range of issues have been raised. I am not fully briefed on Ballinteer but my recollection of previous discussions in the House is that the site chosen was refused planning permission by the local authority, which was confirmed by An Bord Pleanála. Attempts to resolve it resulted in another refusal and an appeal to An Bord Pleanála. There has been particular difficulty in...

Priority Questions: School Accommodation Provision (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: I do not pretend that the planning and building unit in the Department is perfect but when a site chosen with local input is refused planning permission on two occasions it slows down the anticipated progress. When a site unexpectedly becomes available the Department moves to acquire it, as happened in the case of Notre Dame, so that it would be in a position to facilitate schools in a new...

Priority Questions: Schools Mental Health Strategies (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: Well-being and mental health are major priorities for my Department and are set out in the Action Plan for Education.  In the context of increasing concerns about suicide and mental health among young people, it is crucial that we place a major focus on this issue and that is what we are doing through the Action Plan for Education.  The Deputy is aware it contains a number...

Priority Questions: Schools Mental Health Strategies (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The well-being programme is to become a whole-school activity and it is to go beyond those individual curricular areas of PE, social, personal and health education, SPHE, and civic, social and political education, CSPE, to integrate those into a whole-school package. There will be a plan developed in each school. Supports are being provided to principals to design this plan in an integrated...

Priority Questions: Schools Mental Health Strategies (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: I do not agree. This was developed after much thought. Extensive consultation went into developing the well-being programme. It was identified by the stakeholders as an important element. Extensive planning has gone into this. Not only are we restoring guidance counselling and guidance teachers, who will be very important to this, we are also expanding the National Educational...

Priority Questions: Third Level Institutions Governance (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: This question is about general governance across higher education. The Higher Education Authority, HEA, oversees governance issues through a number of mechanisms, including the return of annual governance statements from each of the institutions, annual system funding reviews and meetings with the Comptroller and Auditor General concerning audits of accounts, and acting upon those. Indeed,...

Priority Questions: Third Level Institutions Governance (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: My Department and the HEA are very alert to the need for effective governance. We have, as the Deputy knows, given institutions of education considerable autonomy. They have to use that autonomy carefully. They are subject to audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General who has, as he as done in other public institutions, revealed cases of bad practice. Those are being addressed. Going...

Residential Institutions Statutory Fund: Motion [Private Members] (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: I move amendment No. 1:To delete all words after “Dáil Éireann” and substitute the following: “recognises that:— many individuals suffered horrific abuse when, as children, they were placed in industrial schools and other residential settings; — successive Governments have put strategies in place to support former residents, through the provision...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Modern Language Teaching (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The publication of an ambitious ten-year Foreign Language Strategy is a key commitment in my Department's Action Plan for Education and is a priority issue for me.  The Strategy will include the following goals: - Introduction of Mandarin Chinese as a Leaving Certificate cu rricular subject. Together with other measures, this will...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: Teachers' Remuneration (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The public service agreements have allowed a programme of pay restoration for public servants to start. I have used this to negotiate substantial improvements in pay for new teachers. The agreement reached with TUI and INTO will see pay rises of between 15-22% (between €4600 and €6700) for new entrant teachers.  The agreements also provide for earlier permanency...

Written Answers — Department of Education and Skills: State Examinations (24 May 2017)

Richard Bruton: The State Examinations Commission (SEC) has statutory responsibility for operational matters relating to the certificate examinations. They have provided me with the following information. Examination superintendents are appointed annually by the SEC. Appointment in one year does not necessarily guarantee appointment in any subsequent year.  The positions are advertised: - in the...