Helen McEntee (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to be in the Seanad for the second time this week and am grateful now for the opportunity to set out some of my priorities as Minister for Education and Youth. My objective, which I assume is the same for everybody, is to deliver a world-class education system which breaks down barriers and above all ensures every child can achieve his or her full potential. An education system which wraps around all children and young people in every community is essential if we are to achieve the goal that they are supported to fulfil their potential. I want the outcome of my time as Minister to be greater equity and excellence in education for all children and young people in Ireland. We cannot have one without the other.

I want to focus on specific ambitions that break down barriers and support children and young people. I want to ensure we have a world-class education system that is inclusive, equitable, and empowering for all. Every learner deserves the opportunity to thrive. Our focus is on high standards, inclusive practices, and strong supports to ensure no one is left behind. Breaking down barriers, whether social, economic, or educational is essential to helping all learners succeed. Education should open doors, build confidence and prepare every learner for life, not just exams.

I will prioritise actions to tackle educational disadvantage. This means ensuring that the necessary resources are in place to support and retain children and young people in school to completion of leaving certificate and the junior certificate, where we know there are specific challenges, in order that they can reach their full potential.

The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, programme has seen the gap in retention rates between DEIS and non-DEIS schools halved to 8.4% in recent years. Closing performance gaps further is a key part of the new 2025 DEIS plan I announced at the beginning of the term. Work is under way in respect of the development of a new plan that will be published later this year. I am also working with my team and all stakeholders to develop a new DEIS Plus scheme to put a much greater focus on those schools that have the highest levels of educational disadvantage, particularly targeting and supporting those children who are most at risk. I refer to instances where there is intergenerational trauma or where children have trauma in their lives for various complex reasons.

I am delighted to be able to say that from the start of the 2025-26 school year, for the first time ever, all children and young people enrolled in primary, special and post-primary schools in the free education scheme will be provided with schoolbooks and core classroom resources. School transport is a much-valued scheme to families, and it ensures that children living in rural and remote areas are not disadvantaged by distance by providing a safe and reliable service to their nearest school of eligibility. More than 173,000 pupils benefit from the scheme each day, making it a core component of equitable school access nationwide. The programme for Government contains a commitment to expand the school transport service to include 100,000 additional students by 2030. The Minister of State, Deputy Moynihan, and I are working hard to implement the terms of the school transport review to reduce distance criteria, expand eligibility and make sure every child is supported to get to school.

We know from data trends that Traveller and Roma children have poorer educational outcomes than their counterparts in the general population. I mentioned the junior cycle earlier. Following recent engagement with representatives from these communities, it is clear that we need to focus not just on the leaving certificate but also on the junior certificate. In that regard, extra funding has been secured to increase the number of community link workers and, as part of the Traveller and Roma strategy, we will work to improve communication, promote positive relationships and to support the learning of Traveller and Roma children.

Regular attendance in school is essential, not just for academic achievement but also for well-being, social development and long-term life outcomes. The recent Tusla attendance report shows that in the 2022-23 school year, over 110,000 primary and 65,000 post-primary students missed 20 or more days of school. Everyone will agree that those numbers are alarming.To address this, I recently announced a comprehensive suite of targeted and universal actions to improve school attendance. This includes investment in the educational welfare services and the school completion programme. I acknowledge and commend the work of the home-school liaison co-ordinators and the school completion programme. Important changes need to happen in the age limits because, at the moment, they cannot support children under six. Alarmingly, from visiting schools recently with Senator Scahill, we know there are children as young as four and five years of age who are missing 40,50 or 60 days of school outside the weekends, holidays or any other period. It is important that, when children are in school, we support children at as early a stage as possible. If children attend school, they continue that trend later in life as well.

The vast majority of children with special educational needs are supported to attend mainstream schools with their peers. Approximately 96% or 97% of our students are supported in mainstream education. I thank principals, teachers, including special education teachers, and SNAs for the huge amount of work they do and support they provide day in, day out in our mainstream classes, special classes and special schools. By September, the number of special classes will have doubled in the past five years; there will be more than 3,700 special classes supporting 21,000 children. We need to ensure we continue to support schools and teachers in a context where teachers are facing even more complex and challenging environments. I have asked the Teaching Council to begin work on ensuring all future graduates have a mandatory special education placement as part of their initial teacher education.

It is most important that we have places for children every year and that we do so on time. The work was done last year to prepare for next year in identifying and understanding children's needs, engaging with the relevant schools and making sure both matched. This year, we are asking for parents of children with additional needs and schools or teachers to notify the NCSE by 1 October about whether children will need a place so that we can, by the end of this year, already identify where schools need to open new classrooms to provide places for those children and we are not still unclear about where some children are going this time next year. We have to get better. We are getting better, but we need to bring forward our times every year so that every child is treated equally.

The curriculum at all levels is designed to reflect and support all learners regardless of background, ability or gender. The primary curriculum framework places a strong emphasis on inclusion and diversity. It aims to ensure all children feel they belong, are respected and safe so that they can engage fully in learning and thrive. It recognises each child’s unique background, identity and strengths and is designed to support what is best for each individual child. Under this framework, foreign languages will be introduced at primary level on a phased basis from September 2025.

The work around the changes to primary school is happening. It is on my desk at the moment for me to look at and see how we can move forward to implement it. I look forward to working with teachers, principals and the whole school community in making these important changes.

Turning to the senior cycle, the number of students enrolled in the leaving certificate vocational programme link modules across fifth and sixth years has increased from 30,000 to 50,000. That is a significant increase in a few short years. The number of students participating in transition year passed 60,000 for the first time. That is 14,000 more than five to six years ago. This is due to changes that have already taken place around the senior cycle reform. In 2024, the State Examinations Commission provided an integrated set of results to leaving certificate applied students who also took leaving certificate established mathematics or a modern foreign language in 2024 for the first time. This school year, we saw the first modules from the new senior cycle level 1 and level 2 programmes introduced in schools. This is particularly important because it is for students who have specific and additional educational needs. It makes sure they go through their own exams and are presented with results in the same way as their peers.

These measures illustrate how the senior cycle redevelopment programme is already playing a key role in students reaching their full potential. We will build on this annually over the next five years, with the start of tranche 1 being introduced in September.

I will turn now to teacher supply. We cannot do this without our wonderful teachers, including special education teachers and SNAs. We are showing it is still an attractive profession for young people. First preference data from the CAO shows an increase in post-primary first preferences of 5%. This builds on similar gains in recent years. It is a testament to the very high esteem in which the teaching profession is held.

The number of allocated teaching posts and the number of registered teachers have increased significantly in recent years. There has been a 20% increase in the number of student teachers graduating between 2018 and 2023 and a 30% rise in teachers registered with the Teaching Council in recent years. There are now 78,000 qualified teachers employed in Ireland with more than 35,000 in post-primary schools, the largest number in the history of the State. However, I understand there are still challenges in certain areas, especially in post-primary education and for certain subjects. While I made a number of announcements in recent months, in particular that teachers could get a permanent position after one year as opposed to two years, I am currently working on other measures we can take to make sure it is simple for teachers to do their jobs and to be registered when they have worked abroad. I am also making sure we support those who teach subjects where we know there are challenges at post-primary level or in the Gaeltacht areas, Gaelcholáistí and Gaelscoileanna. I am examining further measures for all of these.

I will turn to well-being, including the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, and Bí Cineálta, which was introduced by my predecessor, the Minster, Deputy Foley. We will continue to implement the actions contained in Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying. Like many colleagues, I have been raising flags in schools where they were putting in place their Bí Cineálta overall strategies. This is essentially a strategy that focuses on how we can support one another, look out for one another, prevent bullying in our schools and be kind. It is as it says on the tin. It is an important strategy, being implemented and taught in our schools from the earliest possible stage. We teach understanding, acceptance and inclusion from the early stages.

It is important that we plan for the future. Thirty years ago, a convention on education was held by one of my many predecessors. It set out the direction in which education would go for the following 30 years and how we would develop many of the agencies and building blocks that created the education system we now have. Later this year, I will announce a new education convention, which will bring together all stakeholders and look at what education needs to be like in the next five, ten and, importantly, 20 years. It takes time for all of these changes to take place. I look forward to working with colleagues in that regard.

It would be hard not to mention the fact we need to continue to invest in the education system, not just in the teachers, curriculum and young people, but in the building blocks and infrastructure. I have a capital budget of €1.6 billion this year and I am currently working with the Minister for public expenditure to, I hope, increase it for the lifetime of the next NDP, which will be from 2026 to 2030. On top of that, I reaffirm my commitment and that of the Government to continuing to increase the capitation grant so that the day-to-day supports are provided for schools. I will make sure we have minor works, summer works and emergency works, are planning ahead as best we can for the future and are investing in those building blocks for young people.

I thank the House for the invitation and look forward to hearing colleagues' contributions.