Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 March 2024
386. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Education her views that the lottery system used in the recent STEM grants were the fairest way to divide the available resources; if it is his intention to continue to fund essential educational services in this manner; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11827/24]
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.
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 secured additional monies to bring the funding available to €4.7m but this still fell short of the asks.
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 on this occasion. The application for each school was 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.
My 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.
I am aware of the time and effort that was put in by schools the application process and the frustration felt by the schools, however there was limited money available to my Department. The Department will be in contact with schools in relation to any future funding that becomes available. A lottery system will not be used.
