John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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Question 485: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if she will appoint a home-school-community liaison officer to the South Clondalkin schools completion programme. [26399/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The home-school-community liaison scheme is one of my Department's main programmes for promoting educational inclusion. Home-school-community liaison services will have a central role in the new action plan for educational inclusion, DEIS, or delivering equality of opportunity in schools, which I launched on 30 May. The new action plan, which will be introduced on a phased basis, starting during the current school year, aims to ensure that the educational needs of children and young people, from pre-school to completion of upper second-level education, or three to 18 years, from disadvantaged communities are prioritised and effectively addressed. The new plan is the outcome of the first full review of all programmes for tackling educational disadvantage that have been put in place over the past 20 years and it will involve an additional annual investment of some €40 million on full implementation. It will also involve the creation of about 300 additional posts across the education system generally.

A key element of this new action plan is the putting in place of a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage in our primary and second-level schools, which will result in improved targeting of resources at those most in need. The identification and analysis processes are being managed by the ERC on behalf of my Department. As a result of the identification process, approximately 600 primary schools, comprising 300 urban or town and 300 rural, and 150 second-level schools will be included in a new school support programme, SSP. The SSP will bring together, and build upon, a number of existing interventions for schools and school clusters or communities with a concentrated level of educational disadvantage. As part of the new school support programme, home-school-community liaison services will be extended to all of the 300 urban primary schools and 150 second-level schools in the SSP that are not already participating in the scheme. Access to teacher or coordinator support will also be made available to rural schools in the SSP that do not already have access to such a service. We anticipate being in a position to notify participating schools on the outcome of the ongoing identification process by the end of the year.