Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank him for facilitating the statements on education. I took the time to look at the Action Plan for Education, particularly at the key issues for 2017. I said earlier in respect of another Minister that it is a brave thing for a Minister to set out targets, deadlines and deliveries per quarter. That is really refreshing in terms of Rebuilding Ireland and the housing programme and the Action Plan for Education. We are seeing realistic targets, delivery times and responsibilities being set, and I think that is really important. Not everything will be reached within the deadline but there is a process by which one can look at and monitor it. It also instills a certain amount of confidence in the thinking and the direction behind the education policy into the future.

I want to deal with six key items I identified and in which I have an interest. The first is well-being in education, which is referred to in this policy document; the second is disadvantage; the third is skills; the fourth is after-school care provision, which is set out in terms of targets for 2017; the fifth is infrastructure; and the sixth is special educational needs, SEN. I will ask the Minister questions to which, hopefully, he will be able to respond, or perhaps we can make contact at a later date.

Again, I thank the Minister for launching the plan. He has clearly set down his action items. On well-being, the policy document states that every school will be required to have a dedicated guidance counselling time available to students. The Minister will implement the junior cycle well-being programme, he will appoint an additional ten National Educational Psychology Services, NEPS, psychologists and he will establish the well-being steering committee to develop policy statements and identify the gaps in the service. I am interested to hear what progress has been made on that. I know it early 2017 but where is the Minister in terms of his targets and the delivery? How does the Minister see that being rolled out in the next few months?

On disadvantage, the Minister stated that in 2017 he will publish a plan for future supports to tackle educational disadvantage but particularly for building and developing existing services in the DEIS supports with the new schools being emphasised for DEIS starting next September. He will also develop a schools excellence fund and commence a pilot scheme initially in the DEIS schools. The Minister might elaborate on that and tell us how that is progressing.

On skills, the Minister will develop 30 new apprenticeships and two new traineeships in 2017. He will review work experience at post-primary, develop innovation and responses to address skills shortages in ICT, languages and biopharma, which has to be welcomed. He will engage actively and in a collaborative way with the enterprise sector in education. I really like the emphasis on enterprise and the economy in terms of education because it is not just ABC and 123, education has a far wider span and the Minister seems to acknowledge that throughout this programme, which is to be commended.

On the after-school provisions, the Minister said he will publish guidelines for the use of school buildings out-of-hours, which has to be welcomed. The days of having public school facilities empty on holidays, at weekends and at night and not open to other forms of community involvement, education or recreation is over and should have been over long ago. I would be interested in how the Minister is developing that in terms of the possible conflicts with the authorities of these buildings and schools and the various vested interests around all that. We should have a very flexible approach to the use of school buildings in terms of promoting education.

On infrastructure, the Minister will complete 46 large scale building projects and provide 6,000 additional permanent post-primary places in 2017. That is a very ambitious target and one to commend but could the Minister give us some idea of how that is going and what mechanisms are in place in terms of rolling that out? That is a highly ambitious target and a brave one to put out there.

On special educational needs, the Minister will introduce new models to allocate teachers in mainstream schools to support children with special educational needs. He will also establish a new, inclusive support service and complete comprehensive assessments of the special educational needs in terms of the SNAs.

We know we are ambitious but education is about realising ambition for ourselves and our families and our children. We also know that education is a powerful instrument in terms of social inclusion - that is a really important statement - and addressing many of the disadvantages that young people face. However, education does not stop with young people; it is an evolving process.

The issues on which I touched are important. They resonate with me and I have a particular interest in them. I acknowledge that budget 2017 secured an additional €458 million in funding for education, and that is positive. This is a very ambitious plan and it is a brave Minister who will set it out as clearly as the Minister has done and I wish him well. I would welcome comments on the issues I raised. Again, I thank the Minister for coming in and, more importantly, for his time.