Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 17 May 2023
83. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Education her plans for the expansion of the support teacher service to all of the schools with a DEIS band 1 status in Dublin 9 and 11; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23373/23]
View answer86. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Education the estimated cost for the expansion of the support teacher service to all of the schools with a DEIS band 1 status the country; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [23377/23]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 83 and 86 together.
My Department provides a wide range of supports to all schools, DEIS and non DEIS to support the inclusion of all students and barriers to students achieving their potential. Supplementing the universal supports available to all schools, the Delivering Equality of Opportunity In Schools (DEIS) Programme is a key initiative of my Department to address concentrated educational disadvantage at a school level in a targeted and equitable way across the primary and post primary sector.
In 1995, the Support Teacher Project was established in order to assist primary schools with children who were experiencing emotional and behavioural difficulties. These are standalone posts which were introduced to provide a behaviour support service to primary schools and provide support to combat challenging behaviour and for the social, emotional and personal development of the targeted children in a holistic manner. There are currently approximately 40 Support Teacher Posts. Given the developments in relation to schools’ supports in this area overall, the Inspectorate has conducted evaluations in a number of primary schools in Dublin and Cork which have support teachers. A composite report on the quality of work of support teachers was published by the DE Inspectorate in December 2020. This report recommended the retention of the Support Teacher Project as a discrete resource in schools serving areas of acute disadvantage.
I recognise there are students at risk of educational disadvantage in all schools. Since June 2020, and over the past three budgets, I have secured funding to provide measures to support children in this regard. As part of Budget 2023, I announced over €50 million to provide free books to primary school pupils within the free education scheme from next September. In March last year, I announced a major expansion of the DEIS programme which means that, for the first time since 2017 the programme was significantly expanded to an additional 322 schools. The programme now includes over 1,200 schools and supports approximately 240,000 students. This means 1 in 4 of all students are now supported in then programme. There are now over 300 schools classified as Urban Band 1 status across the country that receive additional supports to reflect the greater concentration of disadvantage. I have also improved the staffing schedule for all primary schools to 23:1, the lowest it has even been, with an even more beneficial rate for Urban Band 1 schools.
My Department recognises the need to target resources to those schools who need them most, the next phase of work will explore the allocation of resources to schools to tackle educational disadvantage. Part of this programme of work will consider all resources provided to schools in this regard. This work will involve a process of stakeholder engagement in the coming months.
