Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)
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104. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress that she has made to date in bringing school completion officers back under the remit of her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57489/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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On 1 January 2021, responsibility for education welfare functions, including the administration of the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme, SCP, transferred from the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to my Department. The SCP forms part of the Tusla education support service, TESS. While the arrangements between Tusla and the SCP are not impacted by the change in ministerial responsibility, Tusla now reports to my Department in respect of the SCP, which is funded by my Department via Tusla.

The SCP was introduced in 2002 by my Department and the programme is now a central element of DEIS, my Department’s main policy initiative to address educational disadvantage at school level. The SCP delivers a range of local interventions in disadvantaged communities that support the retention of young people in education. The programme enables local communities to develop tailored strategies to maximise the participation levels of those at risk of early school-leaving in the education process. It entails targeting individual young people of school-going age, both in and out of school, and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.

There are currently 122 school completion projects with local management committees. The 2022 allocation for the programme is €26.9 million and additional funding will be provided later this year to allow new DEIS urban primary and post-primary schools to access the SCP service. At present, management of the school completion programme initiatives, including the employment of staff, occurs at local level.

Since my Department took over responsibility for the school completion programme in January 2021, I have secured additional funding to provide for an extension of SCP supports to 28 additional schools that were included in DEIS for the first time in September 2017 and a 5% overall increase in funding for the school completion programme, effective from September 2021. In addition, I negotiated a further increase of 5% for the SCP under budget 2023.

The initial focus of the transfer of the school completion programme has been very much on the development of the legislative platform to support the transfer of functions from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and the process in that respect was recently completed. My Department is now moving on to consider all aspects of the programme, including governance and structures for SCP and all aspects involved therein.

Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE)
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105. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her attention has been drawn to the recent OECD report titled ‘Education at a Glance’ that ranked Ireland in last place out of 36 OECD countries for investment in secondary education as a percentage of GDP; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58218/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, senior academics have raised questions regarding the use of GDP as the most appropriate measure of the size of the Irish economy. My department published a paper on this matter in October of this year to assist users of these statistics to understand this issue (see : gov.ie - OECD Briefing Notes (www.gov.ie)). The paper outlines how the very large increase of 34% in GDP between 2014 and 2015 raised questions about the usefulness of GDP as an accounting standard for Ireland and how this in turn led to the development of GNI*. GNI* is an economic indicator that provides a measure of the size of the Irish economy adjusted to lessen the impact of the globalisation activities that disproportionately affect Irish economic aggregates. GNI has been used instead of GDP in national policy for example, the National Development Plan, 2021-2030.

The paper referenced above outlines how, using the alternative measure of GNI*, education expenditure in 2019 as a percentage of GNI* stood at 5.3%. This is well above the equivalent measure using GDP. It also compares favourably to the OECD average for education expenditure as a percentage of national income, which stood at 4.9 per cent in 2019. The document also looks at Ireland’s spend on education as a percentage of total Government spending and this also compares well internationally.

Since 2019, funding for school level education has increased by around €1.6 billion – 19 per cent.

Input measurement is just one element in examining education systems; other measures, such as indicators that examine the quality of the system, outputs, and outcomes are important in making international comparisons and assessing the performance of Ireland’s schools, and wider education system.

Ireland consistently performs well in International studies such as PISA and PIRLS. For example, as regards literacy and numeracy, Ireland ranked 4th out of 36 OECD countries in literacy and 16th out of 37 OECD countries in mathematics (PISA 2018).

For the transition to adulthood and further/higher education, the enrolment rates (at all levels) among 15-19-year olds in 2020 in Ireland, at 90 per cent, exceed the OECD and EU22 averages and place Ireland seventh. Ireland shares, in common with some other OECD countries, a pronounced pattern of completion of upper-secondary education and commencement of further and higher education around the age of 18.

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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106. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps that she is taking to promote the learning of foreign languages among Irish students; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57655/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can advise the deputy that ‘Languages Connect – Irelands Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education’ aims to increase and diversify the range of foreign languages taught and learned across the education system:

Post Primary Languages Ireland (PPLI) is fully funded by my Department (circa €5m in 2022) and is charged with implementation of a wide range of actions in the Languages Connect. Its Annual Report sets out many of the achievements to date:

Implementation of the strategy is overseen by the Foreign Languages Advisory Group (FLAG) which was established in early 2018. Members of FLAG include relevant government departments and agencies, representatives from the education sector, parents, industry and language experts and the Students Union. Terms of Reference and minutes of meetings are available on the website at the link above.

There are also two working groups, one at primary level (FLAG P) concerned with the “Say Yes to Languages” sampler module, and a second at post primary level (FLAG PP) concerned with a range of actions in post primary schools. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has responsibility for the promotion of foreign languages at third level.

An interim review of the strategy is currently being commenced and a follow up implementation plan 2023 – 2026 will be developed.

Some of the key achievements to date under Languages Connect include:

- Introduction of 4 new leaving certificate (LC) curricular languages in September 2020: MandarinChinese, Lithuanian, Portuguese and Polish bringing the total number of Modern Foreign Languagesavailable at LC to 11: (also French, Spanish, German, Italian, Russian, Japanese and Arabic)

- These 4 languages were examined for the first time in summer 2022 and the following LC sits arerecorded: Mandarin Chinese: 291 Lithuanian: 191 Polish: 824 Portuguese: 145.

- In accordance with the Nice Treaty, students are able to sit a Leaving Certificate non-curricular examination in any EU Language. In 2022, students sat a leaving certificate examination in 24 non-curricular languages in addition to the 11 curricular languages.

- A proposal to include foreign languages in the Primary Languages Curriculum is contained in thedraft Primary Curriculum Framework

- Roll out of the “Say Yes to Languages” sampler programme to senior classes at primary level. Circa.700 schools are expected to participate in the second year of the programme (22/23) using 16 differentlanguages including ISL and Ukrainian.

- Introduction of the #thinklanguages event for TY students – promoting the uptake of foreign languages for senior cycle. In November 2022, 15,000 students from 180 school participated in the 5^thannual #thinklanguages event.

- Increase in the number of Foreign Language Assistants from 110 to 180.

- Introduction of the Visiting Spanish Teacher (VST) programme on a pilot basis (2 VSTs in 21/22 and 3VSTs in 22/23)

- Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programme for Foreign Languages run inconjunction with PPLI and Maynooth University.

- New upskilling programme for Spanish teachers in UCC

-Publication of intercultural guidelines, designed to support schools in responding to the intercultural dimension of the modern classroom and to promote home languages.

- Ukrainian as a Non-Curricular Language will be developed by the State Examinations Commission. The first examination will be available for students sitting the Leaving Certificate in June 2025.

Michael Lowry (Tipperary, Independent)
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107. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will provide an update on her Department's ongoing engagement with both the HSE and the Department of Health to ensure that no alcohol industry-funded literature produced by a website (details supplied) is used in schools to educate school-aged children regarding the dangers of alcohol; if she has formally directed or informed schools through a circular for them not to utilise and discard any material received from the website; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [58409/22]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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It is not appropriate that resources or materials produced or funded by the drinks industry, for education and awareness on alcohol, are in use in our schools.

My Department is giving active consideration to how best to ensure that this position is reflected across our schools, including liaison with colleagues in the Department of Health and the HSE, and this process remains ongoing.