Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

52. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress made in conferring DEIS status on a primary school (details supplied); if this application will be given further consideration in view of the fact that it has been ongoing for some time; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49221/18]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I am aware that the Deputy raised this matter previously in the House.  Last year my Department introduced an objective, statistics based model for assessing which schools merit inclusion in the DEIS Programme, so that all stakeholders can have confidence that we are targeting extra resources at those schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage.   

Schools are not required to make an application for inclusion in the DEIS programme, as all schools both Primary and Post Primary are assessed using this new uniform identification model.

The DEIS identification process uses data from a number of sources to improve accuracy regarding the socio-demographic profile of schools.

To achieve the ultimate objective of allocating resources to best meet the identified need of individual schools, 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, my Department has decided to conduct further quality assurance on the model before extending these envisaged uses of the model. Work is ongoing at present and progress is being made but it is not intended to extend the DEIS programme to any further schools until this work is complete.