Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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Question 409: To ask the Minister for Education and Science the number of whole school evaluations in both primary and post-primary schools that have been published on the website of her Department to date; when she expects this exercise to be completed for all schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27409/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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My Department first began to publish school inspection reports in June 2006. I am pleased to inform the Deputy that since then, 1,055 reports on some 700 schools have been made available to school communities and the general public through publication on my Department's website. There are 286 published Whole-School Evaluation (WSE) reports which include 218 WSE reports on primary schools, 53 WSE reports at post-primary level, as well as 15 evaluations of centres for education encompassing Youth Encounter Project Schools, Youthreach Centres and Senior Traveller Training Centres. A further tranche of WSE reports will be published later this week increasing the number of published inspection reports even more.

It is not possible to indicate precisely when all schools will have an inspection under the WSE model, but it certainly will take some time because WSE is only one of a range of inspection formats employed by the inspectorate. I can assure the Deputy, however, that the Inspectorate has frequent engagement with a great many schools each year through inspection visits for the probation of newly qualified teachers in primary schools (more than 2,300 teachers this year) and the conduct of more than 700 Subject Inspections in post-primary schools annually. I am satisfied that the scope of this inspection activity, in terms of coverage of schools, ensures a high level of external quality assurance of schools at both first and second levels.

Full details of the inspection reports that have been published are available on my Department's website www.education.gov.ie.