I thank the Cathaoirleach and the members of the committee for the invitation to discuss the important issue of the challenges facing refugee and migrant children in Ireland. We are joined today by my colleague from the Department of Education, senior inspector, Ms Linda Ramsbottom.
The numbers of refugees arriving in Ireland, both from Ukraine and from other countries, is at an all-time high. As of the end of May 2023, just over 15,500 Ukrainian pupils had been enrolled in primary and post-primary schools across Ireland. The Department of Education also receives a monthly overall figure for the number of children enrolled in schools that are residing in international protection accommodation from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. At the end of May 2023, the Department reported that there are just over 2,800 children enrolled in schools that are living in International Protection Accommodation Services, IPAS, settings.
The Department of Education is committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality, and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to reach their full potential. Refugee and migrant children in our schools have faced enormous challenges in their lives and are one of the most vulnerable groups of children in Ireland. I will speak about the supports and strategies that have been developed to support refugee and migrant children in the Irish education system.
The Migrant Integration Strategy, which was published in 2017, sets out the Government’s commitment to the promotion of migrant integration as a key part of Ireland’s renewal and as an underpinning principle of Irish society. A key element of the strategy’s vision is for migrants, and particularly their children, to benefit fully from the education system. Actions that are relevant to this Department under that strategy continue to be progressed and the Department will continue to engage with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, which has responsibility for the strategy, to support arriving families.
Regional education and language teams, REALT, were established to support existing structures in responding to the needs of Ukrainian and international protection, IP, applicant children accessing education. Their primary role is to assist in allocating children to school places and to support schools in meeting the needs of children as they arise.
Children and young people learning English as an additional language, EAL, require well-planned support tailored to meet their individual language needs in order to participate fully in school life and to derive maximum benefit from their education. The Department provides specific English language support to schools with pupils newly arrived into the country who have English as an additional language need. Schools may also apply for further language support through the staffing appeals process. At this point in time, the Department has allocated almost 2,000 posts in total to schools for EAL purposes.
In addition to EAL supports, it is estimated that almost 600 mainstream posts have either been newly allocated or retained in schools due to increased numbers of new Ukrainian arrivals. In August 2022, due to the rapidly increasing arrival of Ukrainian refugees, additional temporary special education supports were put in place to support schools with large enrolments. Schools where ten or more Ukrainian pupils are enrolled are provided with additional special education teaching, SET, resources. Schools with 15 or more Ukrainian pupils are provided with additional special needs assistants, SNAs. The process has worked very well, and a total of almost 550 schools received additional temporary SET hours and almost 330 received additional temporary SNA supports. The same level of resources are available under a separate process to support schools who have enrolled a significant number of international protection children.
The Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools to support the inclusion of all students and to address barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools, DEIS, programme is a key policy initiative of the Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post-primary sector. In March last year, the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, announced the single largest expansion of the DEIS programme. This benefited 361 schools. The programme now includes 1,200 schools and supports approximately 240,000 students. This means that one in four of all students is now supported in the programme. The refined DEIS identification model includes a component to reflect the level of educational disadvantage experienced by students who reside in International Protection Accommodation Services centres or emergency orientation and reception centres, EROC.
There is a strong focus on education in the Department's new national action plan against racism and the implementation plan, which was published by the Minister of State, Deputy Joe O’Brien, in March of this year. The Department of Education will continue to progress the actions to strengthen inclusion and anti-racism at all levels of the education system.
Child migrants can face challenges relating to personal, physical and emotional safety. The well-being of children is at the core of all that we do in the education system. Supporting well-being allows children to feel safe and happy in school and to learn. We are lucky that our schools provide a caring and supportive environment where children can flourish. Guidance counsellors support refugee and migrant children in post-primary schools in terms of personal and social development, educational development and career development. This could include, for example, information on what stage of the system would be appropriate for children to enter to continue their education in Ireland, information on grants, subject choice and entry requirements to institutions and career guidance information.
The National Education Psychology Service, NEPS, continues to gather information on the Ukrainian and other refugee experiences through interaction with their psychologists working in schools, attendance at REALT meetings and keeping up to date with national and international research.
In conclusion, I thank the committee for the invitation to attend today and to provide an update on the actions being taken by the Department of Education to support refugee and migrant children to overcome the challenges they face. I look forward to questions.