Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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114. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a full-time home-school and community liaison post could be provided to a DEIS school (details supplied) considering the expansion and diversity of the school enrolment; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [15552/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme seeks to promote partnership between parents, teachers and community family support services, with a view to supporting improved attendance, participation and retention. A HSCL Coordinator is a teacher from participating school/s who is released from teaching duties, for a maximum of five years, in order to work intensively with and support parents and guardians. The overarching goal of the HSCL Coordinator is to improve educational outcomes for children through their work with the key adults in the child’s life. HSCL is a school-based intervention provided to address the needs of students and their families in disadvantaged areas through acknowledging and developing the role of the parent as prime educator.

The HSCL scheme, together with the School Completion Programme and the statutory Educational Welfare Service, make up the three strands of Tusla Education Support Service (TESS).The three TESS strands work together collaboratively with schools, families and other relevant services to achieve the best educational outcomes for children and young people.

My Department works closely with TESS to ensure all schools are supported with the resources available.

Currently, all DEIS Urban Primary and DEIS Post Primary schools are included in the HSCL Scheme, which serves 693 schools. The scheme is delivered by 530 full-time HSCL Coordinators who are teachers in these schools and assigned to HSCL duties either in individual schools or clusters of schools, catering for approximately 207,000 pupils.

In addition to the above;

- a pilot project to support Traveller and Roma pupils, under the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy is in operation in 4 locations with 1 HSCL coordinator assigned in each location. The pilot project supports approximately 50 schools.

- under 2022 Dormant Accounts Funding, securedto support attendance, participation and retention among Traveller and Roma students, my Department has allocated of 10 HSCL Coordinator posts in 14 non-DEIS post-primary schools.

Recognising the need to target resources to those schools who need them most, a phase of work is currently underway to explore the allocation of resources, including the HSCL coordinator support, to schools to tackle educational disadvantage. Part of this programme of work will involve consultation with all relevant stakeholders. It is not envisaged that the current HSCL coordinator allocation to schools will be altered in advance of the completion of that review.