Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 11 November 2014
467. Deputy Michelle Mulherin asked the Minister for Education and Skills in view of the increase in the number of children attending primary schools, the construction of new schools, and the upgrade of others, the plans her Department has to invite applications from schools located in areas of disadvantage to apply for inclusion in DEIS; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43067/14]
View answerMy key priority is to continue to prioritise and target resources at schools with the most concentrated levels of disadvantage and given the current economic climate and the ongoing challenge to meet significant targets on reducing public expenditure, there is no capacity to provide for the inclusion of additional schools in DEIS at this time.
DEIS is the subject of ongoing evaluation to ensure successful implementation and that the best possible approaches to measuring progress and outcomes at both local and national level are used. To that end, at a seminar in May of this year, my predecessor Minister Quinn announced plans to commission one further piece of research in relation to DEIS which aims to collate all the evaluation work to date on the DEIS policy. This report will inform future policy development in relation to educational disadvantage, including the DEIS programme. A request for tender issued on August 1st 2014 and my officials are currently finalising this procurement process.
The current focus of my Department is on this ongoing evaluation and distilling the learning from all the research to date while awaiting the outcome of the aforementioned report to inform future policy on educational disadvantage.
