Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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146. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the amount of funding on average per annum spent of supporting STEM in areas (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [20372/19]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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The STEM Education Policy Statement was launched in November 2017, spending by the Department of Education and Skills on STEM initiatives and CPD in Primary and Post-Primary schools since then is as follows:

- The spending for STEM CPD by JCT and PDST was €4,986,574 for 2018 and €3,557,590 for 2017

- The spend to schools in grant funding for the STEM cluster projects was - €185,000 in 2018

- The spend on an awareness campaign was €78,965 in December 2018. The campaign was run in conjunction with Science Foundation Ireland.

- The Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 included a commitment of €210m in funding to support schools to invest in their ICT infrastructure, to enable the embedding of digital technology in teaching, learning and assessment across all subjects including STEM. To date, some €105m in grants has been distributed to schools from that funding. (In early 2017 the first tranche of this funding, €30m, issued to schools and a further €30m issued in 2018. An additional €45m of this funding issued to schools in the first Quarter of 2019)

Spending by Science Foundation Ireland on STEM is a matter for my colleague, Ms. Heather Humphreys TD, Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation.