Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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175. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the cost of hiring an additional home-school liaison co-ordinator. [38594/24]

Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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176. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of schools presently in receipt of home school liaison co-ordinator hours. [38595/24]

Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 175 and 176 together.

My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non-DEIS, to support the inclusion of all students and address barriers to students achieving their potential.

Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) Programme is the 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 2022, I announced the single largest expansion of the DEIS programme. This benefited 361 schools. 1 in 4 students and 30% of schools are now included in the DEIS programme.

The Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) scheme is one of the key supports provided under the DEIS programme.

The 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 a participating school 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. The HSCL scheme is a school-based intervention provided to address the needs of children and young people and their families in disadvantaged areas through acknowledging and developing the role of the parent as prime educator. This is achieved through targeting the families of students most at risk of educational disadvantage and putting in place a range of appropriate support interventions.

Currently, all DEIS Urban Primary and all DEIS Post Primary schools are included in the HSCL Scheme. The scheme serves 682 schools and is delivered by 528 full-time HSCL Coordinators, assigned to HSCL duties either in individual schools or clusters of schools, catering for approximately 207,000 children and young people.

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. A further 10 HSCL Coordinators are employed under Dormant Accounts funding to support attendance, participation and retention among Traveller and Roma students, across 14 non-DEIS post-primary schools.

The 2024 average salary costs (inc. Employer PRSI) for primary and post-primary teachers are outlined in the table below:

Notes:

1. The figures above are based on expenditure in 2023 and the average public sector numbers in Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 2023

2. The values include substitution costs.