Vol. 471 No. 4
175 Mrs. Geoghegan-Quinn asked the Minister for Education the reason a school (details supplied) in County Galway has been excluded from one of the newly formed clusters operating in the area in spite of the fact that the school submitted an application for such inclusion; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [20869/96]
The clusters to which the Deputy refers have been formed under the rural phase of the Breaking the Cycle initiative. This initiative seeks to target a programme of special supports on selected urban and rural schools which have been identified as being particularly disadvantaged.
This initiative is based on the outcome of detailed studies of educational disadvantage undertaken by the Combat Poverty Agency and the Education Research Centre. Among the findings of these studies was a recommendation that a more targeted approach be adopted, with resources being directed towards the most disadvantaged urban and rural areas. The studies also concluded that disadvantaged area supports should be confined to 16 per cent of the school going population. In this connection, it was noted that the disadvantaged areas scheme already extends to more than 17 per cent of pupils.
The criteria under which schools were selected for inclusion in this initiative and the selection process itself, were devised and carried out by the Education Research Centre following detailed consideration of a range of indicators of educational disadvantage.
In the case of the rural phase of the initiative, the Education Research Centre concluded that the initiative should focus on groups of schools which each have fewer than five teachers and whose proximity to each other is such as to create a cluster which is capable of being served by one locally based co-ordinator. Unfortunately, the school in question was not selected by the Education Research Centre on the basis of these criteria.
