Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 February 2017
205. Deputy Thomas Byrne asked the Minister for Education and Skills the role of the Educational Research Centre in the DEIS status assessment process; and the reason its involvement in the assessment process was minimised, in view of this organisation's previous involvement and experience in DEIS. [8497/17]
View answerThe Educational Research Centre(ERC) was founded in 1966 and was established as a body corporate under Section 54 of the Education Act 1998 in 2015. The main responsibilities of the ERC are to:
1. Conduct independent research on all aspects of education and at all levels of the education system including research that will inform policy making and the improvement of educational standards, and
2. Provide an assessment support service to schools and centres for education.
As a member of the DEIS Review Technical Group the ERC played an instrumental role in the development of a new assessment process for the identification of schools in terms of educational disadvantage. The ERC was invited to participate in the Group on the basis of its experience of the current DEIS programme, having developed the 2005 identification process, conducted the longitudinal evaluation of the impact of the implementation of DEIS, and for its expertise generally on matters relating to educational disadvantage.
In the course of the DEIS Review process, the ERC conducted studies and exploratory analyses to assist the Group in its consideration of the various options available to improve on the methodologies for identification used in 2005, and to inform future policy on identification and assessment.
The ERC, will continue to play a leading role in the implementation of the new DEIS Programme. This will include its membership of a high level Group which will oversee implementation of the DEIS Plan, and a DEIS Technical Forum to carry forward the work of the Technical Group by way of a further programme of work to ensure currency of data sources and development of a more dynamic resource allocation model where levels of resources more accurately follow identified levels of need.
