Written answers

Thursday, 18 October 2018

Department of Education and Skills

DEIS Eligibility

Photo of Gino KennyGino Kenny (Dublin Mid West, People Before Profit Alliance)
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81. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the criteria applied when designating a school for DEIS status; if he will reconsider including a school (details supplied) in the programme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42041/18]

Photo of Joe McHughJoe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my Department introduced an objective, statistics based model for assessing which schools merit inclusion in the DEIS Programme in 2017, so that all stakeholders can have confidence that we are targeting extra resources at those schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage.

This model uses data supplied by schools to my Department's Primary and Post Primary Online Databases and CSO Small Area of Population statistics from the National Census of Population as represented by the Pobal Haase Pratschke Deprivation Index. Variables used in the compilation of the HP Index include those related to demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment rates. This data is applied uniformly to all schools in the country in a fair and objective way, to identify the relative level of concentrated disadvantage present in each school.

DEIS Plan 2017 states that the improved data on the socio-demographic of schools resulting from the new identification model will have an impact not only on the assessment of schools for inclusion in the programme but also on the scaling of resources to allow for more graduated levels of support. This in turn allows for the ultimate objective of allocating resources to best meet the identified need of individual schools.

In order to achieve this, the current identification model needs to be as accurate as possible and this will be facilitated by the use of Eircode to ensure correct inputting of addresses. Further analysis is also required to examine other variables known to be strong predictors of educational disadvantage in the context of resource allocation.

Therefore, in order to ensure the quality of the address data and conduct further analysis, it has been decided to conduct further quality assurance on the model before extending these envisaged uses of the model. Therefore, it is not intended to extend the DEIS programme to any further schools until this work is complete.

DEIS Plan 2017 provides that if we are to have the maximum possible impact on providing opportunities for students most at risk of disadvantage, then our extra resources must be targeted as closely as possible at those students with the greatest level of need.

Work has commenced on identifying such interventions that are having the greatest impact on tackling educational disadvantage. This will involve testing new approaches in groups of schools and working closely with schools in school self-evaluation and planning improvements.

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