Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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Question 25: To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to introduce a database of primary school pupils and details of works being progressed by him to improve its systems in order to facilitate access to accurate and up to date information on individual schools, both to ensure more efficient use of the official time and to reduce the administrative burden on schools. [2957/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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My Department continues to seek to enhance the quality and timeliness of datasets which are required for resource planning purposes, most notably in providing online facilities to streamline the collection of data. In recent years a number of initiatives have been developed in the area of online interaction with schools. There have been a number of developments in the area of pupil data collection from post-primary schools. My Department is currently in the process of streamlining the post-primary returns process to allow for a live online system allowing for easy exchange of information that reflects the up-to-date situation in regard to enrolment at any one time and to cut down on administrative burden and the scale of paper-based information flows across the Department and its associated agencies. My Department intends to proceed, as soon as timing and resources permit, to extend this development to primary level schools.