Vol. 475 No. 7
150 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Education whether a school (details supplied) in County Mayo applied for the Breaking the Cycle scheme education initiative; whether this initiative will proceed in 1997; and whether application forms will be sent directly to all schools. [5678/97]
The school in question was one of 691 schools which applied to the Education Research Centre for inclusion in the small/rural schools element of the Breaking the Cycle initiative.
All applicant schools, including the school mentioned by the Deputy, provided data relating to their pupils under a range of socio-economic criteria which had been devised by the Education Research Centre.
The centre selected schools for inclusion in the scheme on the basis of priority of need as reflected by the data submitted by schools. A total of 123 schools were included in the small/rural element of the scheme on this basis. Unfortunately, the school to which the Deputy refers did not qualify for inclusion on this occasion.
All the selected schools have received a special package of supports to enable them to address the problems of educational disadvantage in their areas. Each school is preparing a five year development plan to address its present difficulties.
I have no plans at present to extend this initiative to further schools.
