Results 3,561-3,580 of 19,559 for speaker:Norma Foley

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: If it is helpful, I can come back in writing on anything I did not get to.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: In the last week or so, we announced additional funding for the digital aspect of it and we also announced the minor works funding, which is a considerable boost of funding going into schools. Significant additional supports go into DEIS schools in terms of increased staffing and other resources. The digital grant scheme goes into all schools equally.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: For that grant, there was only a certain amount of money available to us. The more money we have, the more we are able to distribute. It will be a budgetary consideration coming up to September and October. We will keep an eye on that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I appreciate the Deputy raising that. Considerable emphasis is being placed on STEM. We have made significant reform in the curricula available in schools. It has been implemented particularly in primary and the junior cycle maths side of it, the leaving certificate computer science programmes, agricultural science and the new senior cycle specifications developed for chemistry, physics and...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: The subject area around film and all of that was out for public consultation. We invited the broadest consensus and engagement around thoughts, visions and views not just on the film subject but also on climate action and sustainable development. That public consultation closed last week but there will continue to be engagement with, for example, the IFI, seeking its views and thoughts on...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I appreciate that. I acknowledge that the Deputy is 100% consistent and a huge advocate for this. We are very conscious of that in the planning and building unit. We have Mr. Hubert Loftus here as well so he can hear the Deputy advocate. I appreciate that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I will start with the Deputy's last question. I will get the Department to come back to the Deputy on the school in Ballincollig specifically. I am aware that it is a fairly constrained site. That limits capacity from a technical point of view as to what can be done or not done. A technical site analysis would be required. I can discuss that with the Deputy afterwards and go into greater...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I thank the Deputy. I will go to the SET question first. In terms of the consultation question, I want to say to the Deputy straight-up that there was 18 months of consultation here. The National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, the Irish Primary Principals Network and the management bodies - all of the so-called "education partners" - were part of this process. They were...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: With regard to recruitment and retention, as I stated earlier, this country is at nearly full employment, so there are challenges in various sectors with regard to having staff in place when they are needed. In the first instance, we have 75,000 staff in place. There will always be challenges. They are more acute in some places at some times than they are in others. I absolutely recognise...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: There you go. The Chair would be very welcome.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: We depended on the HSE CHO areas to provide that information. In some areas, we got some of that information. In others, we got less, and in others, it was less again. There was not fairness because we were not getting the information that was needed across those CHO areas. It was determined that there was one place where that information would be available, which is within the school,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: 2025.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: The Cathaoirleach is correct. I know this has been an area of significant interest for him. We have 18,000 young people from Ukraine currently in the system. It is a great boost to them to be able to say that, from 2025, the Ukrainian language will be on the system, but as a non-curricular subject. Second, on the recruiting of teachers from Ukraine, a number of teachers have registered...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I know the last time we spoke, there was probably a question of planning permission, but that was resolved very recently. Now there is a question of engaging with a variety of different Departments, not just us. It includes the Department of culture and tourism and others. We are in a better position now that planning permission is in place. It was a protracted and difficult situation but...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I thank the Chair. On well-being in primary education, I welcome the significant support from this committee. I know it has done much work on well-being. I will give a quick update. We have two pilots running. In the first, there is one-to-one engagement with a counsellor, with the provision of eight engagements. There are 733 blocks of eight being provided across the seven counties...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: I should add I recognise there is great work already happening. We have great counsellors in our schools already at post-primary level. We have well-being teams and support teams across the school. This is just an opportunity to look at something else that might bolster the great work that happens already within our schools.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: The Deputy personally engaged with me on the challenges for parents and I appreciate that. We are very conscious of the pressures. The overall aim is to lift that burden from parents. We have concluded the issue there is we did not have a sufficiency of SENOs on the ground and that makes it really difficult for parents and guardians. As such, an additional €30 million has now been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: On the bus escorts, I am really cognisant of the valuable work they do. There is a small number of them, but we would not be able to function within the school transport system for children and young people with additional needs without the school bus escort. I know them. I know they are hugely invested in the work they do. I gave an absolute commitment there would be a full review of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: On the SEN aspect, I want to be really clear because I have a special interest in the area of special education. The option to travel on mainstream transport, as distinct from special education transport, is only an option. I wish to clearly state that it will be a matter for parents and guardians to decide what bests suits the child. Through the consultation process some parents came...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills: Key Issues for the Department of Education: Minister for Education (10 Apr 2024)

Norma Foley: We were very clear that the commitment around that would be very similar to school secretaries. The body of work around school secretaries took a considerable amount of time because different school secretaries work under different systems. Previously, school secretaries were employed by the boards of management so there were individual circumstances and that took a considerable body of...