Neasa Hourigan (Dublin Central, Green Party)
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665. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills her plans to provide supports for STEM projects to DEIS schools that were not successful in applying for the €4.7 million STEM grants announced by her Department in December 2023; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [1610/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can advise the Deputy that the STEM grant scheme was for all primary, post-primary and special schools within the free education system including DEIS. Given the 2,727 valid applications with asks of over €25m and the total funding available of €4.7m, a decision was made by my Department to run a lottery. The proposals were selected by lottery with the applications assessed on a case by case basis where they were read again by the evaluation team, to ensure they met the requirements as set out in the grant call.

In total there were 530 schools that were awarded grants and of those 146 were DEIS schools.

The Department of Education’s STEM Education Policy Statement 2017–2026 sets out the roadmap for STEM education across early learning and care, primary and post-primary schools, with ambitious goals and actions that are required to achieve and improve the STEM education experience and outcomes for all learners, and to support learners to progress to STEM pathways in Further or Higher Education and the world of work.

Under the Policy Statement my Department continues to provide support for all STEM learners including

• partnership with Science Foundation Ireland to support education and public engagement projects in STEM through the SFI Discover Programme. This includes The All-Ireland STEM Passport for Inclusion programme which is a joint initiative by Maynooth University, Microsoft Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland and the Department of Education that addresses inequalities in access to STEM careers among secondary school students in socially disadvantaged communities
• STEM related curricular reform at both primary and post-primary level
• ongoing provision of STEM professional development by the Department of Education support services
• focus on increasing the uptake of STEM subjects and to enhance STEM learning for learners of all backgrounds, abilities and gender, with a particular focus on uptake by females
• development and publication of guidelines for STEM partnerships between schools and business/industry
• development of the SFI ‘Curious Minds’ programme and
• ongoing support of informal STEM education projects such as Scifest, BTYSTE, Science Blast and iWish.
• The STEM grant scheme was an action in the new STEM Education Implementation Plan published in 2023. All schools are implementing the curriculum which includes STEM. The grant was to support schools in carrying out projects to stimulate an increased interest in STEM and included an application process as with other STEM initiatives in the past such as the STEM clusters project. As with previous grant schemes such as the STEM clusters, ESD grants and creative clusters, schools were invited to apply and were informed at the outset of the total funding available for this scheme.
• The Department is front loading the grant scheme in 2023/2024 school year and it is hoped that a further round of funding can be run this year. This means that eligible schools that were not successful this time may receive funding in the future.
• I am aware of the time and effort that was put in by schools to the application process and the frustration felt by the schools, however, there was limited money available to my Department. In relation to any future funding that becomes available, the Department will be in contact with schools.

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I can advise the Deputy that the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) grant scheme was an action in the new STEM Education Implementation Plan published in 2023. The grant was to support schools in carrying out projects to stimulate an increased interest in STEM and included an application process as with other STEM initiatives in the past such as the STEM clusters project.

When the grant scheme was announced the Department indicated that it had funding of €1.5 million available. There was a phenomenal demand from schools with around 3,000 applications received. Every application received by the deadline of 5 p.m. on 30 November was read and processed, leaving 2,727 schools with an ask amounting of over €25 million.

Given the very high number of valid applications and the budget available for the scheme, a decision was made by the Department to run a lottery, where a random number generator was used to pick out schools based on their line on the spreadsheet. The application for each school was then assessed on a case by case basis with the applications read again by the evaluation team, to ensure they met the requirements as set out in the grant call. Any school deemed not to have met the requirements was removed. The procedure was then repeated until all the budget available was allocated.

My Department is front loading the grant scheme in 2023/2024 school year and it is hoped that a further round of funding can be run this year. This means that eligible schools that were not successful this time may receive funding in the future.

I am aware of the time and effort that was put in by schools the application process and the frustration felt by the schools however there was limited money available to my Department. The Department will be in contact with schools in relation to any future funding that becomes available.