Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 February 2012
203 Deputy Seán Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Skills the rationale behind the decision to strip a school (details supplied) in Dublin 24 of its DEIS band 2 status and that in view of the social and economic demographics of the school’s catchment area, and the large percentage of children attending the school from low income families, if consideration will be given to reversing the decision to revoke the school’s DEIS status. [7662/12]
View answerDEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) provides for a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage and an integrated School Support Programme (SSP). The process of identifying schools for participation in DEIS, was managed by the Educational Research Centre (ERC) on behalf of my Department and supported by quality assurance work co-ordinated through the Department's regional offices and the Inspectorate.
The school to which the Deputy refers was among a number of schools that was judged by an independent identification process in 2005 not to have a sufficient level of disadvantage among their pupils to warrant their inclusion in DEIS.
A review mechanism was put in place in 2006 to address the concerns of schools that did not qualify for inclusion in DEIS but regarded themselves as having a level of disadvantage which was of a scale sufficient to warrant their inclusion in the programme. There was no application for review received from the school referred to by the Deputy.
The current economic climate and the challenge to meet significant targets on reducing public expenditure limits opportunities and means that there is no capacity to provide for additionality to the DEIS programme.
