Joe Flaherty
Question:170. Deputy Joe Flaherty asked the Minister for Education her strategy to address the lower progression rate to third-level among DEIS schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [4675/22]
View answerTuesday, 1 February 2022
Questions (170)
Written answers
DEIS – Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools is the main policy initiative of my Department to address educational disadvantage at school level. In the 2021/22 academic year there are 884 schools in the DEIS Programme - 687 Primary and 197 Post Primary, serving over 180,000 pupils. This represents approximately 20% of the overall school population. The total Department spend on DEIS in 2021 was over €150 million, which includes over €26 million for the School Completion Programme (SCP). The DEIS programme provides for smaller class sizes and other supports including additional teaching posts, Home School Community Liaison Coordinators, DEIS grants, enhanced book grants, curriculum supports and priority access to Continuing Professional Development.
Budget 2022 has allocated the largest-ever increase in funding for the DEIS programme, providing for an additional allocation of €18 million in 2022 (€32 million over a full year) which will enable an expansion in 2022 of the DEIS programme to further schools. This means that by 2023 the Irish Government will target over €180 million at addressing educational disadvantage through the DEIS programme, an increase of 20% on the 2021 allocation.
All DEIS Schools are supported to develop action plans for improvement under the DEIS themes. Transitions is a key theme in DEIS schools’ planning processes and is part of the school self-evaluation (SSE) process. All DEIS schools were invited to a virtual Shared Learning Day organised by my Department in April 2021 on the theme of, ‘Adapting and Managing Successful Transitions for Students’. It was an opportunity for DEIS schools to listen to experiences of successful transition from early years to primary, through post-primary and onto further and higher education to inform their own planning processes. The entire event is available to view at www.gov.ie/en/publication/c5643-resources-for-deis-schools/.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) Student Record System (SRS) data shows that in 2019/20 academic year, 10% of new entrants came from DEIS Schools. There is already extensive engagement between Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and DEIS schools. In an analysis carried out by the HEA at the start of the 2021, 98% of post-primary DEIS schools had links or engagement with a HEI.
My Department works closely with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on tackling educational disadvantage and encouraging transitions to higher education. Initiatives under the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science include the following:
- Funding is provided to seven Special Disadvantage Initiatives located in areas of socio-economic disadvantage in Dublin and Limerick cities. These projects specifically target children and young people in primary and post primary DEIS schools who are generally at risk of not reaching their full academic potential. They also seek to direct further targeted activities at children and young people who demonstrate high academic potential but may be at risk of not progressing to further or higher education for a variety of reasons.
- Engagement with DEIS schools also features in Strand 3 of the Programme for Access to Higher Education (PATH). PATH 3 supports HEI capacity in developing regional and community partnership strategies (including with DEIS schools) for increasing access to higher education by specified groups. A number of projects approved under PATH 3 include engagement with local DEIS schools. Similarly, a number of projects supported under Strand 1 of PATH, which is committed to increasing the diversity of initial teacher education for new entrants, involve engagement with DEIS schools. For example, several Centres collaborate with DEIS schools in mentoring programmes to improve the reach of access to higher education and in particular, access to initial teacher education. The PATH 2 bursaries, now with three tiers of support, take a wider range of indicators into consideration and students from DEIS schools can feature among the recipients.
- Work on the development of the next National Access Plan (NAP) 2022 - 2026 is currently underway. Additional funding of €5m in 2022 was approved to support the development of the new National Access Plan which aims to be more student centred, targeting specific under-represented groups and a move beyond the singular focus on access to higher education with a strong focus on pathways. Entry to higher education for students attending DEIS schools will be included as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in the new Plan.
Question No. 171 answered with Question No. 104.