Written answers
Tuesday, 2 July 2024
Department of Education and Skills
Schools Administration
Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
201. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will address concerns identified by school principals in relation to professional burnout and an excessive administrative burden (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on the matter. [27878/24]
Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source
Teaching Principals
I recognise the key role school leadership has in promoting a school environment which is welcoming, inclusive and accountable
As a result of Budget 2022, I ensured that all schools with a teaching principal have a minimum of 37 Principal Release Days. i.e. one administrative day per week since September 2022. Schools with one special class have 4 additional release days, a total of 41 in the school year and schools with 2 special classes have administrative principal status.
A new leadership framework introduced in 2017 allows for flexibility in identifying and prioritising the evolving leadership and management needs of schools. This shared leadership model supports school leaders in the overall management and operation of schools. It provides for the assignment and re-assignment of post holders to specific roles and responsibilities to meet a school’s evolving needs. Today, 1 in 3 primary school teachers hold management positions. In Budget 2024, I provided for an additional 500 posts of responsibility (Assistant Principal II) for the 2024/25 school year.
Any further improvement will have to be considered in the context of the overall budgetary process.
School Funding
My Department is committed to providing funding to recognised primary and post-primary 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 such as heating, lighting, cleaning, insurance, general up-keep etc. and the Ancillary grant to cater for the cost of employing ancillary services staff. Schools have the flexibility to use capitation funding provided for general running costs and ancillary funding provided for caretaking and secretarial services as a common grant from which the Board of Management can allocate according to its own priorities.
In addition to these grants, €20 million in funding issued during the mid-term break, to support all recognised primary and post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme. This funding was the first tranche of an overall additional €60 million funding announced as part of Budget 2024 measures designed to assist schools with increased day-to-day running costs such as heating and electricity. A further €40 million in funding was delivered in 2024.
I understand the need for increased capitation funding and I am pleased that I have been able to provide for significant increases in capitation funding for primary and post-primary schools in Budget 2024 which includes a permanent restoration of capitation funding as well as an increase for cost of living pressures.
This year’s Budget will provide targeted funding for school communities with an increase in capitation of over €81 million.
As part of the capitation package in Budget 2024 I am pleased to have secured €21 million as a permanent increase in capitation funding to assist schools now and longer term with increased day-to-day running costs. This will support a permanent restoration of funding for all primary and post-primary schools from September 2024. This will bring the basic rate of capitation grant to the pre-2011 level of €200 per student in primary schools and to €345 in voluntary secondary schools. Enhanced rates will also be paid in respect of pupils with Special Educational Needs. This represents an increase of circa 9.2% of current standard and enhanced capitation rates.
As the Deputy will be aware, my Department’s voted estimate for capital and current expenditure for 2024 stands at over €10.9 billion. This represents an increase of over €2.8 billion or 35% since 2019. This is the third largest budget across Government, and the largest ever investment in our schools. This indicates the strong commitment to investment in education by this Government.
In the lead up to the 2025 Budget, as Minister for Education, I will continue to deliver on the priorities outlined in the Programme for Government and to continue to support the students, staff and families in the education sector. As I am sure the Deputy appreciates, it would not be appropriate for me to outline any more specific plans at this stage of the Budgetary process but over the last four years, I have delivered substantial increases in investment in our Education system, and I remain committed to this vision of a world class education system for all.
The OECD average, as referenced by the Deputy, is taken from the annual ‘OECD Education at a Glance’ report and the 13% of per capita and 27% OECD average is based on all education funding from primary to tertiary education. This report also uses GDP as the base against which to compare investment in education across different OECD members. As the Deputy will be aware, senior academics and other independent analysts have raised questions regarding the use of GDP as the most appropriate measure of the size of the Irish economy. To assist with this, my department published a paper on this matter in October 2022 to assist users of these statistics to understand this issue. This paper is available on under OECD briefing notes.
This 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 its distorting effects on measures such as spend per capita on education. In order to help in analysis of the Irish macroeconomy and in the derivation of other such development indicators, a special measure, GNI-Star (GNI*), which excludes these distorting factors by (for example) excluding the net profits of companies that have been sent abroad, rather than staying in the Irish economy. GNI* has been calculated by the Central Statistics Office (2016) and is available as a continuous series (alongside GDP) from 1995. For context, according to the CSO, in 2021 GNI* was about 30 per cent below the level of GDP. An indication of the more appropriate value of GNI* versus GDP is that GNI* is now being used instead of GDP in national policy for example, the National Development Plan, 2021-2030. The Department of Finance uses GNI* in meeting the Government’s European budgetary requirements with debt-to-GNI* figures rather than debt-to-GDP. The briefing paper referenced above outlines how, using the alternative measure of GNI*, education expenditure in 2020 as a percentage of GNI* stood at 5.8%. This compares favourably to the OECD average for education expenditure as a percentage of national income, which stood at 5.1% in 2020. When The document also looks at Ireland’s spend on education as a percentage of total Government spending and this also compares well internationally.
My Department is committed to providing schools at both primary and post-primary level with as much detail regarding grants, grant amounts and expected payment timeframes for each academic year as far in advance as is practicable.
For the 2024/25 academic year, officials in the Department are currently considering the presentation of schedules for grants that should include, as applicable across primary and post-primary, Standardised Testing, Capitation, Digital Strategy ICT, Deontas Breise Gaeilge, Free School Books, School Services Support Fund, Programme grants and DEIS grants.
Special Education
As the SET allocation model has been in place since 2017 based on a 2014 NCSE report, my department believed a review of the model was prudent. The department commenced a review in late 2022 to ensure that the model was meeting the changing needs in special education.
The review examined the following:
- The individual inputs (components) of the model
- The validity and reliability of the data used for each component
- Feedback from our education partners and individual schools
A high level roadmap has been discussed and agreed with our education partners during a series of consultations to enhance the inputs and improve the sensitivity of the model.
The journey of enhancement begins with the 2024/25 allocation by ensuring that the model has a strong foundation.
The key to building a solid foundation is ensuring that the data, for each pillar within the model, is already available to the department and provided by schools. Where data used in the model is received from external sources, it is critical that the information is being received on a consistent basis.
Upon examination of each of the five components used in the model, concerns were identified in relation to two of them, namely gender and complex needs.
Gender was included as a component in the 2017 allocation model on the basis that in Ireland, just as in other jurisdictions, there appeared to be a higher incidence of special educational needs in males.
However, in the intervening period since the model was introduced, there have been developments in research in this area and also in the perception of gender. It is now accepted that the female pupils may have a similar level of need and that this need is becoming apparent at later stages in their growth and development.
The complex needs input, which was introduced in the 2017 model, was predicated on the provision of data from the HSE Children Disability Network Teams on children entering junior infants with special education needs who were assessed or triaged for a waiting list for assessment.
The review highlighted concerns in relation to the veracity and the consistency of the data provided on a national basis by the CDNT. This resulted in the potential for significant variations from one area of the country to another. In addition, it is not possible to verify whether all data reported relates solely to educational need as distinct from care needs, which are resourced through the Special Needs Assistant allocation process, or medical needs.
To ensure that schools are not negatively impacted by these issues, all existing hours assigned for complex needs are being maintained for each school and future data from the CDNT will not be used as a value in the model. This is being done by reapportioning this value at individual school level across the remaining pillars with an emphasis on the Literacy and Numeracy category which demonstrates where additional teaching supports are required. This exercise strengthens the model to give a sustainable allocation to schools, which recognises where there are significant learning needs.
At primary, the Educational Teaching needs profile is calculated based on educational outcome (STen) data which are collected and held within schools and submitted to the Department of Education. At post primary, the data used is Junior Cycle results. Hence, the profiles are directly correlated to, and focused on, pupils with the greatest level of teaching need in the areas of literacy and numeracy.
In addition, to ensure children with the greatest level of need are addressed by the model all pupils who are marked as exempt (approx. 1% of the population) are included as STen 1 to ensure that the school receives an allocation to support them. STen 1 & 2 scores (including exempted) would align in general to pupils in our education system who are in need of the greatest level of teaching support.
In addition, over the last number of years we have seen significant growth in special classes from 548 in 2011 to 2,921 in 2024, with 390 opened in the past year alone. We have also opened new special schools with 130 special schools nationwide with an enrolment of over 8,700 students. A significant number of pupils who were previously supported in mainstream are now supported in these settings.
These elements of the continuum of education provision are resourced separately to the SET model.
My department is committed to ongoing engagement with our education partners in relation to future developments and enhancements to the SET model. The Department acknowledges that every school is different, and that schools can experience unique circumstances that may be difficult to reflect in any standardised method. This is always a challenge when making allocations in respect of 4,000 schools. It is for this reason that the Department, working with the NCSE has streamlined the review process for special education teachers and schools who have any concerns can engage with the NCSE on their allocation. My department is very much aware that additional data is available in individual schools which may not be available consistently across all schools and a key focus of the roadmap is to develop an accurate and verifiable system to capture such data.
A phased high level plan has been compiled to further enhance the model over the coming years.
My department intends to undertake further detailed consultations with our education partners in the development of future enhancements to the model. The initial focus will be on areas such as:
- Examination of additional potential data sets already available in schools or other areas within the early years settings that could support greater sensitivity in the model.
- Development of a revised process for resourcing new schools and those in early stages of development
- Development of a mechanism for transfer of resources from primary to post primary based on changing demographics
- Examination of geographically isolated schools
- Delivery of a package of training and supports on the use of the continuum and education passports
In further phases, it is intended that my department, in consultation with education partners, will examine an ongoing continuous improvement process that can give schools more input into identifying the need in their school in the most efficient way possible.
No comments