Vol. 513 No. 6
143 Mr. Spring asked the Minister for Education and Science his views on the principal areas which need attention; and the steps, if any, he will take to deal with these in view of his recent public comment that he will make tackling educational disadvantage a priority. [3323/00]
One of my key areas of concern is that traditional approaches to tackling the problem of educational disadvantage have tended to lack the necessary flexibility to target individual and small groups of pupils suffering educational disadvantage. The system has tended to concentrate resources on schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantaged pupils, while failing to give adequate support to other schools with smaller but nonetheless serious pockets of disadvantage.
The New Deal – A Plan for Educational Opportunity which was recently launched by the Taoiseach provides for the expenditure of £194 million over the next three years on the main areas of education. The funding will be provided on a multi-annual basis and appropriate provision will be targeted at educationally disadvantaged pupils in each of the major areas of education, from early childhood education through to life-long and continuing education.
Plans are already under way in my Department to implement a comprehensive survey of all primary schools to identify the level of concentration of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds in each school. While it is intended that the criteria to be used in this survey will be based on those used in setting up the Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage project, the reliability of these criteria as predictors of educational disadvantage is under review and the precise criteria that will be used in this new survey have not yet been finalised.
In response to the level of disadvantage identified in the survey, additional supports will be made available to schools to meet the needs of their pupils. The level and nature of these supports will vary depending on the level of need identified.
My objective is to ensure that the system is in a position to accurately identify pupils suffering educational disadvantage and to provide extra support to enable them to gain maximum benefit from the education system.
