Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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174. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of early child care and education scheme, ECCE, programmes that are implementing the Aistear and Síolta curriculum; the mechanisms in place to evaluate the educational outcomes for children under the ECCE scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21405/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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All pre-school services, participating in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme introduced in 2010, are required to implement the early childhood quality and curriculum frameworks: Síolta and Aistear. The commitment to implement these frameworks is a condition of the contract agreed between pre-school service providers and the Department of Children and Youth affairs (DCYA). Currently 4,222 services are in active contract with the DCYA providing the ECCE programme to 117,000 children. The DCYA contract also includes provision for verification and audits which require pre-school service providers to permit representatives to attend at the premises for the purposes of inspection and audits. These include regulatory inspections by the Tusla Early Years (Pre-school) Inspectorate, Pobal, and education-focused inspections conducted by the Inspectorate of the Department of Education and Skills (DES). The DES, effective from 11 April 2016, has responsibility for evaluating key aspects of education provision in the educational setting inspected and to promote improvement in that setting. Reports arising from education-focused inspections are published on www.education.ie

The National Síolta Aistear Initiative, which is being led by the DES, in partnership with DCYA and the NCCA, was established in 2016, to centrally coordinate the implementation of the Síolta and Aistear frameworks. The initiative includes the provision of mentoring to support early years settings to implement Síolta and Aistear and an Aistear CPD pilot being led by the NCCA.Early-years education-focused inspections evaluate the nature, range and appropriateness of the early educational experiences for children participating in the ECCE Programme. The EYEI model of inspection is based on a quality framework informed by the principles of both Aistear and Síolta as well as national and international research relating to early childhood education and inspection.