Michael Murphy (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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377. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills whether her Department has assessed the level of educational disadvantage in post-primary schools that receive a significant proportion of their intake from DEIS primary schools but do not themselves have DEIS status; and if so, whether interim supports such as HSCL access, school meals, or school completion programme supports are being considered in such cases. [29390/26]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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Addressing educational disadvantage in all schools is a key priority for me as Minister for Education and Youth. The DEIS programme is targeted at schools with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage. Schools that were included in the most recent expansion of the programme in 2022 were those with the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage as identified through the refined DEIS identification model. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme, and the model was applied fairly and equally to all schools. A detailed paper on the refined DEIS identification model is available on gov.ie.

I recently announced the DEIS Strategy to 2035 which is the first long-term, whole-system approach to addressing educational disadvantage. This strategy recognises education as central to breaking cycles of disadvantage, expanding opportunity, and ensuring long-term security. It sets out a more flexible model of support, so that resources are aligned with each school’s level of need as it changes over time.

The strategy also acknowledges that students at risk of educational disadvantage are present in all schools. It therefore focuses on improving outcomes, encouraging innovation, and ensuring schools can access the right supports when needed. The DEIS Strategy to 2035 sets out actions under the strategic objective 2.2, to develop an agile resource allocation model to support children and young people at risk of educational disadvantage in all primary and post-primary schools. These actions focus on the continued enhancement of the data available to measure school level disadvantage and for the development of a more flexible resource allocation model that can react to change in school needs and provide the right resources at the right time. The increase in DEIS Grant and HSCL allocation for schools in the DEIS programme, and the allocation of HSCL on a pilot basis to a selection of schools that are not in the DEIS programme is a first step in the move to that more dynamic model. No schools are losing resources in relation to this work.

As work continues on these actions, we will continue to work closely with schools and the education stakeholders. Any future allocation of resources will be considered over the lifetime of the DEIS Strategy to 2035 and in the context of available resources.

There are also a range of universal supports available to all schools to support children and young people at risk of educational disadvantage. These include:

• National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides educational psychological service to all primary and post-primary schools and special schools to support the well-being, academic, social and emotional development of all learners.

• The Special Education Teaching (SET) allocation provides a unified allocation for special education support teaching needs to each school based on each school’s educational profile and also encompasses an element of English as an additional language (EAL) support allocation. Under this SET model, schools are frontloaded with resources to provide support immediately to those pupils who need it without delay.

• Free schoolbooks are provided to all children and young people in the free education system.

• Inspectorate support helps improve education provision for all children and young people. They promote best practice and school improvement by advising teachers, principals and boards of management in schools.

• Through the Department of Social Protection, the School Meals Programme provides regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of the education provided to them. The Hot School Meals Programme is available to all primary schools, meaning that approximately 3,700 schools and organisations and 682,000 children are now eligible for the Schools Meals Programme.