Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 29 Mar 1994

Vol. 440 No. 7

Written Answers. - Disadvantaged Pupils.

Seán Doherty

Ceist:

281 Mr. Doherty asked the Minister for Education the total number of children at primary school level; the total number of children at secondary school level; the total number of disadvantaged children at primary school level; the total number of disadvantaged children at secondary school level; the total amount of disadvantaged funding paid to primary level schools; and the total amount of disadvantaged funding paid to secondary school level.

Minister for Education (Ms Bhreathnach)

The information requested by the Deputy is set out in the following table.

Special supports for schools in disadvantaged areas take the form of additional teaching posts and additional financial assistance. At primary level, a total of 293 concessionary teaching posts and 60 home-school-liaison co-ordinator posts have been allocated to schools which have been designated as serving disadvantaged pupils. In addition, £2.618 million was allocated in 1993 under the disadvantaged areas fund to support the efforts of these schools in serving disadvantaged pupils. The overall cost of the support measures in the primary sector in 1993 was £8.5 million.

The number of additional teaching posts, including remedial and resource teaching posts, allocated to post-primary schools for the alleviation of disadvantage is 486. Other programmes being funded include the school book scheme for needy pupils, special initiatives to improve the retention of pupils from disadvantaged areas in education, including the home-school-liaison scheme, the vocational training opportunities scheme, Youthreach and the alleviation of examination fees. The total cost of these measures in 1993 was £35.6 million.

Year	Total Number of children enrolled in sector	Total Number of children in schools receiving special disadvantaged supports
Primary sector 1993/94	521,524	72,941
Post-primary sector 1993/1994	358,347	65,020

Total cost of funding disadvantaged supports:

Primary sector: Year 1993, £8.5 million.

Post-primary sector: Year 1993, £35.6 million.