Results 5,061-5,080 of 19,559 for speaker:Norma Foley

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: There is an element of choice with those other subjects. Students have the opportunity to choose whether they will pursue another language whether it is French, German or Spanish or whatever might be available in a school. It is very hard to draw a comparison there because that is a strong distinction. Notwithstanding that, the Department is very conscious of the importance and the primacy...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I fully accept the Deputy’s passion. I want to acknowledge the work of Conradh na Gaelige and other organisations.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: There is a suite of organisations doing great work on this area and have been very engaged with the Department. I fundamentally agree with the Deputy that the more languages a student is given the opportunity to experience, statistics show they can perform very strongly from a linguistic perspective. That is the chief motivation behind bringing in a variety of modern foreign languages at...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: We are doing this now and I know people would have different views initially as to the benefits and the impacts on the Irish language. In fact, studies show us that where students can master one language, they can master a second one. We are moving ahead with that and this ability to introduce modern foreign languages at primary school has been very positively endorsed. That involves...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: -----as we go forward.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Was that with regard to the inflation?

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I thank the Deputy very much for those questions. On the school secretaries, there are more than 2,600 school secretaries on the payroll and 154 of them are individual secretaries employed by more than one school. I am just giving the Deputy that information as it is an interesting dynamic. The Department has been providing a payroll service for these school secretaries since September...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I acknowledge my officials. They really did put in an enormous body of work to get it, in the first instance, through primary and on into post-primary level. I acknowledge that post-primary level is a very different experience from primary, with a greater number of subjects and a diversity of choice and all of that. There is a review of how the scheme worked in primary. That is very much...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Very much so. I acknowledge that tremendous work was done on the ground by schools to make it workable, as it were. The Department did provide specific and additional funding to schools to ensure they were recompensed, if you like, for taking charge of the roll-out of the book scheme and compensated for the time and work involved in it. It has been very positively endorsed by parents and...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Tuigim an méid sin. Is maith is cuimhin liom an cruinniú a bhí againn. Tá an Roinn ag déanamh gach iarracht áiteanna a chur ar fáil do na daltaí. I understand a very impressive meeting that was organised by the parents there. There is a genuine determination on the part of parents, the Deputy and public representatives, who are very committed. I...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: On the issue of the posts of responsibility, as part of the budget 2024 process, 1,000 additional posts of responsibility will be made available. That is a positive and a win for schools. If we believe in distributed leadership, we must provide opportunities for it. Regarding the master's in education, Building Momentum has provided a sectoral bargaining process to deal with outstanding...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Schools are encouraged to reuse books. They are fantastic at doing that, and great at reusing resources. Part of the funding is being provided for this. Schools have shown great ability to do it in the past. I have no reason to doubt they will be able to do it in future. I also appreciate that teachers supplement what is happening in the textbook in a variety of ways. They will be...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Yes. Throughout Covid, we followed what was the public health advice. When the public health advice about what was required changed, we obeyed it.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I am sorry, but I missed that. What did the Deputy say happened?

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: To reply to the first question, Dublin Bus has never been part of the school transport system.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I appreciate that the cohort of students the Deputy mentioned have been discommoded but we do not have a role in that regard.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: The school transport system is very distinct from that transport scheme. It is not operated by the Department or by Bus Éireann on behalf of the Department. I heard what the Deputy said about bus escorts. I am very conscious that these people are hugely important to our system. On the case the Deputy raised where an escort is not available or able to work on a certain day, a sub or...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: I am very pleased to hear that a student will be working with a member of the committee. I would be more than pleased to meet the student who will be working with the Deputy or another member of the committee. I give a commitment to the Deputy that we will convey to her a specific update on the school.

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: On solar panels, we launched the solar panels programme last week. The programme will go live on 30 November for the first ten counties. A further eight counties will follow and another eight counties will follow that again, in May and December, I think. All schools will be eligible to apply. There will be 16 panels per school. The initiative means that schools will, for the first time,...

Select Committee on Education and Skills: Estimates for Public Services 2023
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary) (29 Nov 2023)

Norma Foley: Schools were not asked to repay any moneys that were given to them during Covid.