Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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296. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will report on the programme for Government first year priorities in education and the role his Department played. [16455/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, the Government published a Progress Report on the implementation of the Programme for Government last December. A Second Report is close to finalisation and will be published by the Government shortly and an Annual Report will be published following the Government’s first year in office.

In addition, earlier this year, I published an end of year review on the Action Plan for Education, which was launched in September 2016. I also launched a new updated Action Plan for Education 2017 in February, which outlines hundreds of actions and sub-actions to be implemented throughout the year.

The reports published to date outlined progress on the implementation of a range of commitments in the Programme for Government and other actions arising, where my Department has played a lead role in their implementation.

These included:

- Publication of my Department’s Strategy Statement and Action Plan for Education

- An additional €458 m was provided in the Budget to fund an extensive programme of recruitment in 2017.An additional 2400 teaching posts will be provided and an additional 115 SNA posts have also been provided from January 2017, bringing the total to 13015, an increase of 22% since 2011.

- The Access and Inclusion Model, which provides supports for children with a disability to access the ECCE programme, was introduced in June 2016 to allow parents and providers to plan for September enrolments. Funding of €15 m was provided in 2016 and full implementation is underway.

- Changes in the Budget include an additional teacher for all one-teacher island primary schools and capacity of one-teacher mainland schools to apply for an additional teacher in certain circumstances.

- An additional €36.5 m was allocated in the Budget for the higher and further education sector in 2017.

- The report of the Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education was published in July and has been referred to the Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills.

- As outlined in the Budget, a consultation process in being initiated on the design and operation of an Employer-Exchequer investment mechanism in relation to higher education to operate from 2018 onwards.

- An independent expert was engaged in July 2016 to review the obstacles to lone parents participating in and completing higher education.

- €2.7 m was announced in September for the Programme for Access to Higher Education Fund to support disadvantaged students under the National Plan for Equity of Access to Higher Education. Additional funding of €8.5 m announced as part of the Budget to support over 3,000 students from disadvantaged groups to attend higher level education.

- The Student Assistance Fund Review was published in September 2016. It reaffirmed that demand for student assistance remains strong and identifies future challenges. The Fund supports students from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds with ongoing needs for financial support.

- Springboard+ 2016 was launched in June 2016 and provided for 5,825 free higher education courses across the country. Over 90% of the courses (excluding entrepreneurship courses) contain work placement elements. An evaluation of the Springboard+ programme was published in December 2016 showing that 80% of Springboard+ participants (2011 – 2015) are no longer on the live register. Over 30,000 course places were filled on 1,349 courses since 2011 and a further 5,825 place came on stream in autumn 2016.

- The Education (Admission to Schools) Bill 2016 was published in July to provide families with fairer access to their local schools.

- The commencement in July 2016 of the Fitness to Teach provisions of the Teaching Council Acts 2001-2015 means that for the first time any person will be able to make a complaint to the Teaching Council about a registered teacher.

- Looking at Our School 2016, a new quality framework for school self-evaluation was published in August 2016.

- The Policy on Gaeltacht Education 2017-2022 was launched in October 2016 setting out how Gaeltacht schools will be supported to provide high-quality, Irish-medium education.

- A network of nine Regional Skills Fora have been established to bring together employers and the further and higher education system to work together in building the skills needs of their regions.

- In November 2016, an additional 430 resource teachers were allocated to schools to support children with special needs. This brings the total number of resource teachers for the 2016/17 school year to 7,429 posts, an increase of 9% in twelve months.

- The DEIS Plan 2017 was published in February to tackle educational disadvantage by setting out new targets to, further improve literacy and numeracy, improve school completion rates, and improve progression to further and higher education.

- 825 schools are included under the DEIS programme for the 2016/17 school year. An additional 79 schools will be added to the programme from the 2017/18 school year.

- The patronage of 9 new post-primary schools was announced in November, 8 of which will be multi-denominational, to be established in 2017 and 2018.

- Applications are being sought for the patronage of 4 new primary schools, 3 of which are to be established in 2017 and 1 in 2018.

- On 30 January, I announced plans in relation to the accelerated provision of multi- and non-denominational schools under the new Schools Reconfiguration for Diversity process.

- The General Scheme of the Education (Parent and Student Charter) Bill 2016 was approved by Government in December. The Bill will require school to publish and operate a Parent and Student Charter which will set out the principles that will guide how schools engage with parents and students.

- €30 m was paid to schools for the purchase of ICT equipment under the Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020.

- Funding provided to strengthen school leadership with additional deputy principal posts for schools with enrolments of 700 students and over, totalling 170 posts.

- 4,600 coaching hours are being provided to 400 school leaders under a new coaching service by the Centre for School Leadership that is being rolled out from January 2017.

- Mentors have been assigned to newly appointed to Post Primary Principals across the country and Leinster-based newly appointed Primary Principals.

- A new Post Graduate Programme in School Leadership has been announced for teachers aspiring to senior school leadership positions. The first intake of students will be in September 2017 and it will be open to approximately 200 participants annually.

- The Interim Review of the National Strategy: Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life (2011-2020) has been published showing significant improvements in reading and mathematics over the period. New revised targets will be set for 2017-2020 to keep the focus on the areas that need attention.

- The latest OECD PISA results, show that in 2015, Ireland’s 15-year-olds are among the best in OECD countries in reading and are performing significantly higher than the OECD average in mathematics and science.

- The report of the STEM Education Review Group was launched in November 2016, with recommendations including the introduction of computer science, including coding, as a Leaving Certificate subject.

- 44 projects have been selected to receive up to €2.8 m in funding to improve public understanding of science and technology, increase STEM uptake in education and improve diversity in STEM.

- 30 New School buildings have been completed and 20 large scale extensions/refurbishments have also been completed.  This has provided an additional 15,290 additional permanent school places and 4746 replacement school places.

- Under the Additional Accommodation Scheme, 182 projects have been completed providing 6998 additional permanent school places.

- 197 projects were approved under the Summer Works Scheme for schools and 453 projects were approved under the Emergency Works Scheme.

- €28.5 m was announced in November under the Minor Works Grant for primary schools throughout the country.

- In October, the EIB agreed a €200 m investment loan which will support the construction, enlargement and modernisation of 71 schools over the next 4 years.

- Consultations with education partners in relation to the development of the new special education teaching allocation model and the implementation of aspects of EPSEN, in this context, took place in January 2017. Ongoing consultation will continue with education partners.

- A new model for the allocation of special education teachers is being introduced for mainstream schools with effect from September 2017. This model will allocate resources to schools based on the profiled need of schools and will allow schools to allocate resources to pupils based on their individual learning needs as opposed to being based primarily on a diagnosis of a particular disability. For the introduction of the new allocation model, schools will retain any teaching allocations previously received from the NCSE to support pupils with Down syndrome, for as long as those pupils stay in the school.

- The Action Plan to Expand Apprenticeships and Traineeships in Ireland 2016 – 2020 was launched in January, aimed at delivering 50,000 apprenticeships and traineeship registrations by 2020.

- Two new apprenticeships were launched in 2016 with a further 13 new apprenticeships due to launch later in 2017.

- Secured almost 1,000 extra special needs assistants.

- Introduced a 15-22% increase in pay increase for newly qualified teachers.

- Started a process which will introduce coding at primary school level; announced that computer  science, including coding, would be offered as a full leaving cert subject.

- Published an International education strategy to bring the value of international education to €2.1 Billion by 2020.