Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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268. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to introduce a primary pupil database. [9067/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Primary Online Database (POD) will replace the current annual census of primary schools, and will involve schools maintaining and returning data on pupils to the Department at individual pupil level on a live web-based system which is currently being developed by a project team in the Department. The database will allow the Department to more closely monitor and evaluate progress and outcomes of pupils at primary level, to validate school enrolment returns for grant payment and teacher allocation purposes, and to follow up on pupils who do not make the transfer from primary to post primary level. The system is currently in development. A pilot is scheduled to take place in the second quarter of 2014, involving a small number of volunteer schools. The main population of the database with existing pupil data will take place during the 2014-2015 academic year, and the database is scheduled to come fully into operation in the 2015-2016 academic year.