Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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357. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the main initiatives she has taken to tackle educational disadvantage since 27 June 2020; the additional funding provided in successive budgets; her plans for 2024; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [55300/23]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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During my time as Minister for Education I have shown a strong commitment to addressing educational disadvantage. My Department’s Statement of Strategy, sets out the vision and mission of the Department for an educational system where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential. It sets as a goal to ensure equity of opportunity in education and that all students are supported to fulfil their potential recognizes that equality of opportunity and inclusivity must be fundamental principles in our education system. The successful delivery of this goal means that our school system is open and welcoming for all students, regardless of background, and that in particular learners at risk of educational disadvantage will be supported to achieve their full potential. Since June 2020, and over that past four Budget’s I have secured funding to support measures aimed at achieving that goal.

Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Programme is a key policy initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post-primary sector. In March last year, I announced the single largest expansion of the DEIS programme. This benefited 361 schools. The programme now includes in the region of 1,200 schools and supports approximately 240,000 students. 1 in 4 students and 30% of schools are now supported in the programme. Schools were identified for inclusion in the programme through the refined DEIS identification model which is an objective, statistics based model. The extension of the DEIS programme follows an extensive body of work by the DEIS technical group to develop the refined DEIS identification model to identify the concentrated levels of disadvantage of schools. It also took into consideration the significant educational disadvantage experienced by Traveller and Roma learners and by students residing in direct provision or emergency homeless accommodation. This expansion was supported by an additional €32million investment in the programme from 2023, increasing my Department’s overall spend on the DEIS programme to over €180million yearly.

The extension of the DEIS programme followed on from an investment of €5m I secured for the programme in Budget 2021. This investment allowed for a 1 point improvement in the staffing schedule for Urban Band 1 schools, a reduced student threshold for the allocation of additional Deputy Principal posts in DEIS post-primary schools. It also provided for a 5% increase in funding for the School Completion Programme. I again increased funding for this programme by a further 5% under Budget 2023, as part of an €8 million allocation to address the impacts of COVID-19 and increase retention rates of students in schools, especially those from groups at risk of educational disadvantage. In addition to this I secured a further €3 million in Budget 2023 which provided for social inclusion measures, including enhancing the capacity of the education welfare services in Tusla that are now under the remit of my Department.

As part of Budget 2024, additional targeted funding will be provided to social inclusion and educational supports which help facilitate the continued provision of high quality and inclusive school and education systems and promote improved learning outcomes for pupils and students.

Funding of €5 million is being provided for additional Educational Welfare Officers posts. It will also provide supports for the Alternative Education Assessment and Registration Service (AEARS) for their work in relation to the assessment of education provision in places other than in recognised schools, including home schooling and independent schools. There is also €2 million once-off funding provided for increasing services in school retention and completion programmes and supports targeted at the most educationally disadvantaged children.

Since the Department of Education took over responsibility for the SCP in January 2021,I have increased the overall budget for the programme by almost €10m. This includes €5.9 million provided to allow access to SCP to new DEIS urban primary and post-primary schools under the recent DEIS expansion as well as two separate 5% increases under Budget 2021 and Budget 2023. The total allocation of SCP funding for 2023 is €34m.

While DEIS is the main policy initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level, I have introduced many initiatives to further address the issue of educational disadvantage across all schools.

Under the Programme for Government there was a commitment to seek to make further progress in reducing the pupil teacher ratios in primary schools. Budget 2022 implemented a further 1 point improvement in the primary schools staffing schedule for the 2022/23 school year meaning primary schools have been allocated teaching posts on an average basis of 1 classroom teacher for every 24 pupils since September 2022. Budget 2023 announced a further reduction in class sizes for primary schools to 23:1 resulting in an increase in the number of teaching staff in our schools. The 1 point improvement also applied to the enhanced staffing schedule in place in the 306 DEIS Urban band 1 schools.

This Budget measure has brought the teacher allocation ratio in all primary schools to the lowest ever seen at primary level. That was the third successive Budget which has seen an improvement in allocation of teachers to primary schools.

As part of Budget 2023, I secured a major investment of over €53 million to provide free schoolbooks in primary schools and special schools in the Free Education Scheme which has resulted in free schoolbooks for approximately 561,000 pupils in over 3,230 recognised primary schools, including over 130 special schools from this September.

The free primary schoolbook scheme delivers on the Programme for Government commitment to extend the free school book pilot which was available in over 100 DEIS primary schools from 2019 to 2022, as resources permit.

The extension of the free schoolbook scheme to all public post primary schools was considered in the context of available resources as part of budget negotiations. I announced that further funding is allocated under Budget 2024 to extend the free schoolbooks scheme to all students in junior cycle years in public post primary schools.

The total funding available for this new scheme is €67 million. Up to 213,000 students, in over 670 schools, will benefit from this new measure, which will commence from September 2024.

The extension of the scheme to senior cycle students will be considered as part of future budget negotiations.

In September 2021 my Department published guidelines for schools on the use of reduced school days. The purpose of these Guidelines is to provide clarity to school authorities and parents and guardians on the use of reduced school days and to ensure that this practice is limited to only those circumstances where it is deemed absolutely necessary. The Guidelines are effective from January 2022. An information note for parents has also been published.

Last year my Department published a report on the Review of Out-of-School Education Provision. The out-of-school education sector relates to a small number of schools and education centres which operate outside of mainstream education provision. This review focused on the education provision in the State for learners under 16 years of age who have encountered difficulties staying in mainstream education. The review also makes recommendations to inform future policy to provide a sustainable option within the education system to further serve this group of learners.

Publication of the Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027 and the payment of €50 million in grant funding for digital technology infrastructure to all recognised primary and post-primary schools will also benefit students from disadvantaged backgrounds. This strategy advances the embedding of digital technologies across teaching, learning and assessment, building on the work under previous strategies. It aims to further support the school system so that all students across our schools have the opportunity to gain the knowledge and skills they need to navigate an ever-evolving digital world successfully.

Work is progressing in my Department to develop a Traveller and Roma Education Strategy in close consultation with relevant stakeholders in the education, and Traveller and Roma communities. It will set out our strategic direction in relation to Traveller and Roma education policy. Consultation is a central part of this, and the first phase of public consultation opened in July through an online survey, which was designed with input from an Advisory Group made up of key education and Traveller and Roma stakeholders. This survey closed on 30 October and we have now started targeted consultations. This works builds on the Dormant Accounts Fund project which provided 10 new Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) coordinator posts to 14 non-DEIS post-primary schools with high numbers of Traveller and Roma students. This project aims to tackle education disadvantage for Traveller and Roma communities; funding is also provided for initiatives to improve attendance, retention and progression.

My Department recognises the need to target resources to those schools who need them most, the next phase of work will explore the allocation of resources to all schools to tackle educational disadvantage.

The DEIS Plan is based on the premise that in order to have the maximum possible impact on providing opportunities for students most at risk of educational disadvantage, then extra resources need to be targeted as closely as possible at those students with the greatest level of need. This will involve further development of the existing DEIS programme, to create a more dynamic resource allocation model where levels of resources more accurately follow the levels of need identified by objective data.

To support this work my Department has invited the OECD Strength Through Diversity: Education for Inclusive Societies Project to review the current policy approach for the allocation of resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage in Ireland, this is currently ongoing and the OECD team estimate that the review will be complete in Q2 of 2024. This review will provide an independent expert opinion on the current resource allocation model for the DEIS programme and, drawing on international examples, inform a policy approach for an equitable distribution of supplementary resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage attending all schools, both DEIS and non-DEIS.