Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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366. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason no education performance or educational outcomes data from individual schools was used in the identification process for DEIS status; and his views on whether this is a significant shortcoming in the methodology used. [20278/17]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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368. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason data on junior certificate retention rates by school, junior certificate exam results aggregated to school level and or leaving certificate retention rates by school were not used to identify post-primary schools that had high levels of disadvantage for the DEIS identification process; and the reason he is of the view that it is an improvement to exclude information on actual education outcomes from the identification process in favour of purely using information on the socioeconomic context of a school which is only moderately correlated with actual education outcomes. [20280/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to takes questions Nos. 366 and 368 together.

The publication in February last of DEIS Plan 2017 was preceded by a comprehensive DEIS Review process which included the work of a Technical Group to consider appropriate eligibility criteria to identify the level of need in schools and to develop an appropriate methodology for a new assessment framework.

The Technical Group undertook an extensive body of work and research which is set out in the Report on the Review of DEIS which is available on my Department’s website at .This work included a review of the methodologies used in 2005 and the options now available given developments in the availability of centrally held data. It also took account of theexperience of the implementation of DEIS to date from available and through comprehensive stakeholder consultation.

The DEIS Review consultation process noted stakeholder concerns about the use of educational outcomes as a basis for extending DEIS supports to schools, or for reducing such supports. In particular it was felt that outcomes achieved due directly to the input of specific additional resources and supports should not be used as a means to remove these supports from schools. It was considered that this would give rise to a perception of penalising success and rewarding failure.

As the Deputy is aware, an identification process has been developed which uses CSO Small Area data as represented in the Haase Pratschke Index of Deprivation (HP Index) combined with DES Primary and Post Primary data supplied by schools.

There is a strong focus in DEIS Plan 2017 on supporting schools to achieve improved outcomes, rather than using those outcomes to determine the level of supports they might receive.

The use of the HP Index in the context of educational disadvantage is consistent with its use across a broad range of Government Departments, agencies and various public sector entities. The index contains variables which provide a measure of the underlying risk of educational disadvantage and the exploratory analysis conducted by the Educational Research Centre shows that there is a moderate to strong correlation between scores on the HP index and poorer educational outcomes across the school spectrum, particularly in urban and post primary schools.

It is important to note that as part of my announcement in February in launching DEIS Plan 2017, I made it clear that we would continue to conduct further analysis to examine other strong predictors of educational disadvantage in the context of resource allocation. In view of this, as set out in both the Report on the Review of DEIS and DEIS Plan 2017, the Technical Group will continue its work, supplemented as necessary by additional research and data expertise.

A key objective of DEIS Plan 2017 is to achieve a more dynamic and tailored process for the assessment of schools which will more closely match resources to identified need.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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367. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools that have requested verification of the data used to identify the levels of concentrated disadvantage in their school for the purposes of identifying their eligibility for support under the DEIS programme; the name of each school that has requested this verification; if his Department is providing this verification to each school that has requested it; and the detail of the verification process. [20279/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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To date, 97 schools have requested verification of the data used in the identification process for participation in the DEIS programme.  I am not in a position to provide individual details of the schools who applied to have their data verified as this constitutes personal information in relation to the schools concerned.

The verification process is currently ongoing and schools will be informed on an individual basis of the results.Details of the verification process are available on my Department's website at

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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369. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on whether it is problematic that the DEIS identification process relies on an assumption that there is a strong correlation between the HP Deprivation Index and educational outcomes; the level of research there has been to support this assumption; and the correlation between the index and education outcomes, including education disadvantage. [20335/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The DEIS identification process uses an objective centrally held data-based model for assessing a schools level of disadvantage.  The model takes into account a number of factors including social class, dependency ratios, educational levels of parents, lone parenthood, overcrowding, occupation and unemployment.  There is a well established strong connection between high levels of concentrated disadvantage and poor educational outcomes.  Exploratory analysis conducted during the DEIS Review Process as part of the development of the new identification model examined  the relationship between the HP index and educational outcomes and established a strong correlation between the variance in HP scores and the variance in educational outcomes, most notably in urban primary and post primary schools.Further details on the development of the new identification process are available in the Report on the Review of DEIS which can be found on my Department's website at:  

I am satisfied that the new DEIS Identification Model used to assess the level of disadvantage among the pupil cohort of a school has been applied fairly using centrally held data adopting an objective and scientific approach which has been uniformly applied for all schools in the country.