Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 March 2017
117. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education and Skills if consideration will be given to appeals from any schools not successful in receiving DEIS status on this occasion; and the process involved. [10578/17]
View answerThe new DEIS Plan provides for a verification process and any school wishing to seek verification of the information used to assess the level of disadvantage of its pupil cohort may submit an application for same to social_inclusion@education.gov.ie.
It is important to note that the school details published on 13th February represent a first step in the application of the assessment process to support pupils in schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantage. I am fully aware that there are further schools whose concentrated level of disadvantage may not be at the highest level, but may nevertheless be at a level which warrants additional supports for pupils under DEIS.
However, as noted in the DEIS Plan, the implementation of a new objective central data-based model of identifying levels of disadvantage, which is applied uniformly across all schools in the country, will be followed by a further programme of work to create a more dynamic model where levels of resource more accurately follow the levels of need identified by that model.
Once this work has been completed, consideration will be given to extending DEIS supports to a further group of schools as resources permit.
In delivering on the DEIS Plan 2017 we must be conscious that there are ongoing changes in demographics which may be more marked in some areas than others. Populations in some areas have changed considerably since schools were originally evaluated for inclusion in DEIS in 2006. The new model may reveal that some schools currently included in DEIS have a level of disadvantage within their school population much lower than that in some schools not included within DEIS. If this turns out to be the case, then we must consider whether it is fair that those schools continue receiving these additional resources, using resources that may be more fairly allocated to the schools with greater levels of disadvantage.
