Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 March 2024
385. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Education what oversight measures were in place for the recent STEM grant competition; if the records of how this competition was conducted are available to school management to review and if so, how does one access the same; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11826/24]
View answerI can advise the Deputy that the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) grant scheme was an action in the new STEM Education Implementation Plan published in 2023. The grant was to support schools in carrying out projects to stimulate an increased interest in STEM and included an application process as with other STEM initiatives in the past such as the STEM clusters project.
Monies for the STEM grant scheme was from the Department of Education budget. The schools which have received grants have been paid eighty-five percent of the funding in 2023 with the remaining fifteen percent to be paid following a reporting and evaluation process in 2024.
When the grant scheme was announced the Department indicated that it had funding of €1.5m available. There was a phenomenal demand from schools with around 3,000 applications received. Every application received by the deadline of 5pm on the 30th November was read and processed, leaving 2,727 schools with an ask amounting of over €25m. The Department work hard to secure additional funding which brought the monies available to €4.7m.
Given the very high number of valid applications and the budget available for the scheme, a decision was made by the Department to run a lottery, where a random number generator was used to pick out schools based on their line on the spreadsheet. The application for each school was then assessed on a case by case basis with the applications read again by the evaluation team, to ensure they met the requirements as set out in the grant call. Any school deemed not to have met the requirements was removed. The procedure was then repeated until all the budget available was allocated.
I can advise the Deputy that the promotion of STEM and digital learning within our education system is a key priority for the Department of Education, and is reflected in multiple strategy documents, such as the STEM Education Policy Statement, Digital Strategy for Schools, Action Plan for Education, Ireland’s National Skills Strategy, Arts in Education Charter, and the National Strategy: Literacy and Numeracy for Learning and Life.
The Department is front loading the grant scheme in 2023/2024 school year and it is hoped that a further round of funding can be run this year. This means that eligible schools that were not successful this time may receive funding in the future. The amount of funding available will depend on the priorities and demands on the Department’s allocated budget. In relation to any future funding that becomes available, the Department will be in contact with schools.
