Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 March 2017
377. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education and Skills to set out the number of schools serving the 51 areas designated under the RAPID programme not designated as DEIS schools; and the name of those schools. [13906/17]
View answerDEIS is my Department's main policy initiative to tackle educational disadvantage. The DEIS Plan for 2017 sets out our vision for future intervention in the critical area of social inclusion in education policy.
A key element of DEIS Plan 2017 is the availability of a new identification process for the assessment of schools for inclusion in DEIS using centrally held CSO and DES data.
The key data sources are the DES Primary Online Database (POD) and Post-Primary Online (PPOD) Databases, and CSO data from the National Census of Population as represented in the Pobal HP Index for Small Areas which is a method of measuring the relative affluence or disadvantage of a particular geographical area. Variables used in the compilation of the HP Index include those related to demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment rates. This data is combined with pupil data, anonymised and aggregated to small area, to provide information on the relative level of concentrated disadvantage present in the pupil cohort of individual schools. This data is applied uniformly across all schools in the country. Through the use of centrally held data, schools were not required to submit an application for inclusion in the programme.
It is important to note that a school's rate of disadvantage is based on the student cohort attending the school, and not where the school itself is located. Accordingly, the RAPID designation was not considered to be an appropriate variable for the identification of schools for participation in DEIS.
The location of the 51 areas designated under the RAPID Programme can be found on the Pobal website at the following link: https://www.pobal.ie/FAQ/Pages/RAPID.aspx.
The list of all Post Primary schools in Ireland is available on my Department's website at the following link:
http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Data-on-Individual-Schools/Education-UT-primaryEducation-IE-DepartmentofEducationAndSkills-PrimarySchoolsLocations2016-2017-010317.csv.
The list of all Primary Schools in Ireland is available on my Department's website at the following link:
http://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Data-on-Individual-Schools/Education-UT-primaryEducation-IE-DepartmentofEducationAndSkills-PrimarySchoolsLocations2016-2017-0103171.csv.
The list of DEIS schools for the 2016/2017 school year can be found on my Department's website at the following link:
http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/deis_school_list.xls.
Details of the new DEIS schools included in the list published on 13th February 2017 can also be found on my Department's website at the following link:
http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/DEIS-Plan-2017-New-DEIS-Schools-List.pdf.
