Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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312. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if financial assistance will be provided to a school (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [6540/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 305, 310 and 312 together.

Meeting the educational needs of children and young people from Ukraine is a priority for the Government, and my Department is determined to support the efforts of school communities across the country, who have shown huge commitment and generosity. I announced the establishment of Regional Education and Language Teams (REALTs) to support the needs of Ukrainian children arriving in Ireland. These Education and Language Teams are hosted by the 16 regional education and training boards (ETBs) and are staffed by existing regionally-based education support personnel working closely together to ensure good coordination and alignment of supports for Ukrainian children.

My Department provides specific English Language support to schools with pupils newly arrived into the country that have English as an additional language. Further language support may also be provided, through the staffing appeals process, to schools that have a high concentration of pupils enrolled who have received less than 3 years EAL support and currently have less than B1 (level 3) proficiency in English. Staffing arrangements for the 2023/24 school year, including information on EAL supports available to schools, have been published on the Department website.

ICT grant funding can be used by schools to support the needs of Ukrainian children arriving in Ireland through access to digital technology infrastructure. This can include loaning devices to Ukrainian children enrolled in the school if needed, as well as providing appropriate software, app and tools to support their learning.

All schools are provided with special education resources based on their enrolments but the unprecedented and immediate and ongoing increases in school enrolments following the commencement of the war in Ukraine required a specific response. It must be understood that the increased in some school enrolments were in excess of 100% and this is the reason for the implementation of these temporary emergency measures.

An allocation of additional temporary SET hours and SNA posts are made automatically to schools based on a sliding scale of enrolments. The school referred to by the Deputies has received its allocation of SET hours and SNA posts in line with the relevant scales.

My Department has also been engaging with the school to which the Deputies refer to ensure that adequate accommodation will be in place.

My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing these universal supports, the DEIS programme provides a targeted and equitable way to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level that promotes equity across the primary and post-primary sector.

In March last year I was glad to be able to announce a major expansion of the DEIS programme. For the first time since 2017, the programme was significantly expanded to include an additional 322 schools. This means that the DEIS programme now supports over 240,000 students in over 1,200 schools addressing educational disadvantage.

Schools were identified for inclusion in the programme through the refined DEIS identification model, which is an objective, statistics-based model. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and the model has been applied fairly and equally to all schools.

The DEIS identification process is based on the principle of concentrated disadvantage and the proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school. The DEIS identification model aimed to identify those schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage or the highest proportion of students from disadvantaged backgrounds within a school using the school's enrolment data and national census data as represented by the Pobal HP Deprivation index which is publicly available. A detailed paper on the refined DEIS identification model is available at: www.gov.ie/en/publication/a3c9e-extension-of-deis-to-further-schools/#how-schools-were-selected-for-inclusion-in-deis

The extension of the DEIS programme to new schools is just one component of work in my vision for an inclusive education system which supports all learners to achieve their potential. While the DEIS programme supports those schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage, I also recognise that there are students at risk of educational disadvantage in all schools. Since June 2020, and over the past three budgets, I have secured funding to provide measures to support children in this regard. As part of Budget 2023, I announced over €50 million to provide free books to primary school pupils within the free education scheme from next September. I have also further improved the staffing schedule for all primary schools to 23:1, the lowest it has ever been.

The next component of work will consider all schools, within and outside the DEIS programme and explore the overall allocation of resources to schools to tackle educational disadvantage. Part of this programme of work will involve consultation with relevant stakeholders over the coming months.

Following the National Census 2022 held on the 3rd April last, it is envisaged that an updated HP Deprivation Index will be generated by Pobal and will be available in Q3 of 2023. My Department will engage with Pobal in relation to this process. The updated HP Deprivation Index, when available, will be considered by my Department to help inform future resource allocation to tackle educational disadvantage.

In relation to funding for schools, my Department provides funding to all recognised schools in the Free Education Scheme by way of per capita grants. The two main grants are the Capitation grant to cater for day to day running costs including heating, lighting, water charges etc. and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. These grants may be regarded as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities.

All recognised Primary and Post-Primary schools in the Free Education scheme benefited from a once-off cost of living measure to support increased school running costs. This additional capitation funding in 2022 represented an increase of circa 40% of current standard and enhanced capitation rates. The additional grant was paid in December at the rate of €75 per pupil at Primary level and €113 at Post-Primary level. Enhanced rates were also be paid in respect of pupils with special educational needs. Schools can use this to cover additional energy costs and other increased day to day operating costs. In the context of the current cost of living crisis the Department would expect this very significant additional funding being made available to schools will be sufficient to meet increased running costs.