Aengus Ó Snodaigh
Question:548. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh asked the Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media the estimated cost of expanding the creative schools programme to all schools. [40499/22]
View answerTuesday, 26 July 2022
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Creative Schools is one of the flagship initiatives of the Creative Youth Plan and supports schools and Youthreach centres to put the arts and creativity at the heart of children’s and young people’s lives. Creative Schools supports schools over 2 years to develop and implement a bespoke Creative Schools plan. It is led by the Arts Council in partnership with my Department and the Department of Education. Access to the initiative is open to all Department of Education-recognised primary and post-primary schools and Youthreach centres - currently 4,076 according to published figures (www.gov.ie/en/collection/63363b-data-on-individual-schools/ and www.etbi.ie/youthreach/youthreach-directory-contacts/.
In the four rounds from 2018 to 2021, a total number of 1,168 schools have applied to participate in Creative Schools with over 650 schools invited to participate. Currently, schools cannot re-enter the initiative once they have participated, thereby encouraging the inclusion of new schools each year.
Each school is provided with access to a trained Creative Associate, as well as school coordinator and voice of the child training. In addition, each school participating in the initiative is provided with a Creative Schools operating grant. The Creative Schools initiative also incurs other administrative costs in the Arts Council (e.g., project management team, evaluation and national celebration event), the Department of Education (e.g., teacher substitution for training days), and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (e.g., Hub na nÓg deployment).
From January to July 2021, there were 310 participating schools in the initiative while 350 schools participated in the initiative between September and December that year. While the allocation of funding by the Arts Council is a matter for the Council under the Arts Act 2003, I understand that €2.5 million was provided by the Council to deliver Creative Schools in 2021.
In addition, commencing in 2022, four schools have been invited to participate in Creative Schools that are based in non-mainstream settings and are attached to Special Care Units or Children Detention Centres. Given the particular needs of these settings and the young people within them, they have been offered an enhanced package of supports to include greater allocated time with a Creative Associate and an increased grant.
Creative Schools was originally rolled out as a geographically dispersed pilot initiative, and as such scaling up on a national or universal basis may require a re-consideration of the most feasible model of delivery.