John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 74: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of whole school evaluations completed since February 2006, and issued to schools for comment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [19862/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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It is planned that 271 whole-school evaluations will be undertaken in 2006, 214 in primary schools and 57 in post-primary schools. Reports on 50 of these whole-school evaluations will be issued to schools but will not be published as they were initiated prior to 6th February 2006, the date on which the regulations on publication of reports came into effect.

Under the new arrangements for publication of WSE reports there is a minimum period of 14 weeks (70 school days) from the date of the final in-school evaluation activity until the WSE report is cleared for issue to schools and for publication. This period includes time for writing the report, for feedback to the board of management and the teachers, for factual verification and to enable the board of management respond to the report if it so wishes.

At present 32 primary whole-school evaluation reports and 6 post-primary whole-school evaluation reports are with the school for either factual verification or school response. I anticipate that a significant proportion of these reports will be finalised for issue to schools and published on the Department's website before the end of June 2006.

It is projected that 221 whole-school evaluation reports will be published arising from evaluations conducted in primary and post-primary schools between 6th February and the end of December 2006. Because of the 14 week pre-publication procedure some reports arising from evaluations conducted towards the end of 2006 will not be published until early in 2007.

Finally I wish to point out to the deputy that there is an appeal process under Section 13(9) of the Education Act (1998) whereby a teacher or board may request a review of an inspection. Where such a review is initiated this will inevitably delay publication of the report.