Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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315. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills when the review conducted by her Department in 2018 into alternative education or out-of-school provision life centres will be published. [60048/21]

Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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316. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason the review conducted by her Department in 2018 into alternative education or out-of-school provision life centres has not been published to date. [60049/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 315 and 316 together.

Under Action 88 of the DEIS Plan my Department has undertaken a review of out-of school education provision. This review has been carried out by a Working Group chaired by my Department and including representatives from Tusla and the Education and Training Board sector.

This review has been informed through the use of questionnaires, submissions from stakeholders and a public consultation process, including consultation with students.

I expect to soon be in a position to publish the report of the review. It is envisaged that the report will inform future policy in this area.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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317. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 186 of 4 July 2018, if she will ensure that medical training is provided to schools with a pupil with a prescribed adrenaline autoinjector to ensure that they are in a position to properly manage anaphylaxis; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60070/21]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Board of Management of each school is responsible for the care and safety of all pupils. It is important that the school management authority requests parents to ensure that the school is made aware of any medical condition suffered by any pupils attending. Where the school is aware of potential difficulties that may arise as a consequence of a medical condition suffered by one or more pupils, it may be possible for the management authorities, working in conjunction with parents, teachers and children to put preventative measures in place to lessen the possibility of any difficulties arising or to ensure that, if a pupil suffers from an illness requiring, for example, the administration of medication, that appropriate treatment is available.

The administration of medicines in primary schools is the subject of an agreement between the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the organisation representing school management at primary level. While this agreement specifies that no teacher can be required to administer medicine or drugs to pupils, it also sets out procedures that must be followed where a teacher or teachers agree to do so. The position is that either the parents of the child should make themselves available to administer medication as required, or where they wish the staff in the school to administer it, they should seek the agreement of the school.

My Department cannot direct any member of the Board of Management or the teaching staff of the school to administer medical treatment to pupils, action and procedures which are normally carried out by medical professionals such as doctors and nurses.

Where a child requires adult assistance to assist in the administration of medicine and where the extent of assistance required would overly disrupt normal teaching time, SNA support may be allocated for this purpose.

It is a matter for the Board of Management to ensure that SNAs are in a position to effectively meet the care needs of pupils for whom SNA support has been allocated in the school, when appointing an SNA.

Where specific training is required, the Board of Management should liaise with the Health Service Executive (HSE) in order to ensure that the HSE provides guidance and training that enables the SNA to meet the care needs of the pupil in an appropriate manner. It is a matter for individual school authorities to make such arrangements locally.

In some instances parents may be the most appropriate trainers for schools in relation to the needs of their child in the school environment, where parents have received comprehensive training from experienced HSE staff.

The organisation of training in the administration of medicines is a matter for the Board of Management and my Department has no plans for future training programmes in this area.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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318. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the efforts that are being made to promote the study of foreign languages at second-level; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60098/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can advise the Deputy that significant progress has been made to date under Languages Connect, Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017 – 2026 which aims to increase and diversify the range of languages taught and learned. Implementation of Languages Connect is overseen by a Foreign Languages Advisory Group.

Some of the actions taken to date include:

- The inclusion of four new Leaving Certificate curricular languages in September 2019 for examination in summer 2022 – Lithuanian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish and Portuguese

- The development of the Languages Connect website:

- The development of a significant body of resources to support teachers and improve the quality of teaching and learning on

- Development and support for Communities of Practice for teachers of foreign languages

- An increase in the number of Foreign Language Assistants from 110 in 2017 to 170 in 2021.

- An additional allocation for schools introducing lesser taught languages (Circular 006/2020) to promote diversification

- Funding for school exchanges, teacher upskilling and school libraries through Post Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI)

- Funding for summer camps to promote uptake of new and heritage languages

- Funding for HEIs to promote language courses

- Funding for a new upskilling programme for Spanish Teachers in UCC

- Piloting a Visiting Spanish Teacher Programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Education in Spain

- Thinklanguages annual event for Transition Year students to encourage them to take a foreign language for Leaving Certificate:This attracted 150 schools and approximately 12,000 students in recent weeks.

- A series of additional awareness raising activities including social media campaigns, and the creation of a body of resources to support guidance counsellors with understanding and promoting the value of foreign languages skills

- Publication of a toolkit to support cultural and linguistic diversity in our schools

- Launch of a language sampler module in approximately 500 primary schools across the country using 11 different languages, to encourage the take up of foreign languages at post primary level and to help inform the potential introduction of foreign languages at primary level as proposed in the draft Primary Curriculum Framework

- Integration of foreign languages in Careersportal.ie

- Roll out of a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) approach to foreign language learning

Further details on many of these actions and more are available in PPLI’s annual report which is available here:

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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319. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the supports that are given by her Department to encourage exchanges between Irish secondary schools or students and continental colleagues; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [60099/21]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The main instrument to promote exchangees between Irish and other EU schools is the Erasmus+ programme which supports schools that want to organise learning mobility activities for school pupils and staff. In 2020, over €7m in EU Erasmus +funding was provided as support for both primary and secondary schools in Ireland.

Mobility activities provide learning opportunities to individuals and support internationalisation and institutional development of schools. School staff can undertake activities such as Job-shadowing, Training Courses and Teaching Assignments whilst the Learner mobility option enables pupils to spend periods abroad to study at a partner school.

Léargas as the National Agency for Erasmus+ programme in the school sector provide a suite of supports to applicants and participants such as information sessions and a PR kit for teachers. In addition Léargas manages support initiatives for schools such as eTwinning. This is a free private and secure online platform linking a community of more than one million teachers across Europe and supports teachers to find partners and work on joint projects in any curricular area. To-date, a total of 1890 eTwinning projects have been registered with Irish teachers involving countries from the forty-four participating countries in Europe and beyond. Approximately 1100 of those projects involved secondary schools.

However, the acquisition of European language competency by students plays a key part in the success of such mobilitiees and exchanges. The Deputy will be aware that Languages Connect is Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education which aims to increase and diversify the range of languages taught and learned. The Department of Education, through Post Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI) provides funding for the School Exchanges Scheme. Under the Scheme, up to twenty schools annually have been provided with €15,000 in funding over a three year period. The funding can be used towards exchange costs such as flights, to offer scholarships to students who would not otherwise be able to participate, or for other needs that the school identifies as contributing towards language learning on the exchange.