Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 20 March 2024
383. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Education the reason all schools were not accepted to the recent STEM grant competition which was held for funding for a core curricular area and a key priority of the Government; if he accepts that schools such as a school (details supplied) were unfairly penalised due to the lottery system; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11824/24]
View answer384. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Education to direct management of a school (details supplied) to the legislation that governed how the recent STEM funding competition was run and managed; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11825/24]
View answer400. Deputy Michael Lowry asked the Minister for Education how the staff and students at a school (details supplied) in County Tipperary will engage in STEM activities in the school to the same standard as their neighbouring school that received €10,000 in funding; if the inspectorate will be cognisant of the disparity in funding when assessing schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [11863/24]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 383, 384 and 400 together.
I can advise the Deputy that we have provided this information to Drom National school on a number of occasions.
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. Support for curriculum is provided separately.
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, including Drom National School, with an ask amounting of over €25m.
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.
As the initial funding available at the time of call for applications was €1.5m, the Department worked to secure as much additional funding as possible, bringing the total available to €4.7m. Unfortunately, on this occasion, this additional funding fell short of the ask of over €25m. 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.
It should be noted that the Department also supports STEM through other areas such as teacher professional development and the development of resources, as well as through supporting initiatives such as SciFest, ESB Science Blast, the Discover programme with Science Foundation Ireland and BT Young Scientist and Technology Exhibition.
The Department continues to provide support in relation to the redevelopment of the Primary curriculum. In the STEM area the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum (PMC) was published in September of this year. A suite of high-quality professional development supports is being provided by the Department, together with Oide and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to support the engagement, collaboration and professional learning of school leaders and teachers to become familiar with, and implement, the PMC. The support includes a comprehensive range of face-to-face and online supports to introduce, implement and embed the Primary Mathematics Curriculum over the course of an extensive three-phase continuous professional development (CPD) framework. This follows on from the support provided for the Primary Language Curriculum. Support for the other areas which will be introduced to schools in the coming years will provided by the Department.
I am aware of the time and effort that was put in by schools including Drom National School, to the application process and the frustration felt by the schools. However, there was limited money available to my Department and we had to work within that budget. As mentioned previously the grants were to stimulate an interest in STEM in schools.
Drom National School has been engaged with Microsoft DreamSpace for several years, which has had a significant impact on STEM in the school. This is a resource that is not accessible to all schools. When visiting schools the inspectorate is mindful of the diverse programs and resources available that are available to each school.
The Department will be in contact with schools in relation to any future funding that becomes available.
