Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 233: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of home-school liaison officers employed within her Department; their role and responsibility, and the average number of children and families with which they work; the number of primary and secondary schools which have access to a home school liaison officer; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [38439/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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A total of 371 home-school community liaison co-ordinators are assigned to 310 primary and 201 post-primary schools in disadvantaged areas to work with school staff, parents and relevant community agencies in advancing the educational interests of children. The home-school community liaison scheme is concerned with maximising active involvement of children in the learning process, in particular, those who might be at risk of failure; promoting active co-operation between home, school and relevant community agencies in promoting the educational interests of the children; raising awareness in parents of their own capacities to enhance their children's educational progress and to assist them in developing relevant skills; enhancing the children's uptake from education, their retention in the educational system, their continuation to post-compulsory education and to third level and their attitudes to lifelong learning; and disseminating the positive outcomes of the scheme throughout the school system generally.

Home-school community liaison services will have a central role in the new action plan for educational inclusion, DEIS, Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, which is putting in place a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage in our primary and second level schools for the purposes of qualifying for resources, both human and financial, according to the degree of disadvantaged experienced. This standardised system will replace all of the existing arrangements for targeting schools for participation in initiatives to address disadvantage. As a result of the identification process, which involved a new survey of all mainstream primary schools conducted by the Educational Research Centre, Drumcondra, last May and the updating by them of existing data sources on the levels of disadvantage in second level schools, approximately 600 primary schools, comprising 300 urban-town and 300 rural, and 150 second level schools will be included in a 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 participating in the scheme. Access to teacher-co-ordinator support will also be made available to rural primary schools in the SSP that do not have access to such a service. We anticipate being in a position to notify participating schools regarding the outcome of the ongoing identification process by the end of the year.