Vol. 562 No. 3
12 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Minister for Education and Science if his attention has been drawn to recent figures produced by the National Parents Council suggesting that the cost of sending a child to primary school was now around ?1,000 per year; if, in view of this, he will consider providing financial assistance to low income families through subsidised books or equipment; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5843/03]
My Department operates a grant scheme towards the cost of providing school textbooks for pupils from low-income families in primary schools. For the purposes of these grants, a needy pupil is a pupil from a family where there is genuine hardship because of unemployment, prolonged illness of a parent, large family size with inadequate means, single parenthood, or other family circumstances such as substance abuse which would indicate a similar degree of financial hardship.
Principal teachers administer the book grant schemes in schools in a flexible way under the terms of the schemes based on their knowledge of particular circumstances in individual cases.
At primary level, in 2003, a total of €3,851,000 has been provided towards the cost of school books for pupils from low-income families. This compares to expenditure of €3,816,000 in 2002 when it is estimated that approximately 144,000 needy pupils in 2,900 primary schools received assistance under this scheme.
Additional assistance is also available to parents by way of the back to school clothing and footwear allowance scheme operated by the Department of Social and Family Affairs. A variety of locally based groups financed by Government Departments assist families and children from disadvantaged backgrounds with a diverse range of supports such as breakfast clubs, homework and other after school clubs, pre-reading, reading and family literacy programmes and toy libraries. In addition, the home-school community co-ordinators would be supporting the development of parents as prime educators to act as a resource not only for their own children but other children and families.
