Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 10 November 2004
261 Ms Enright asked the Minister for Education and Science the number of primary and secondary schools in the State; the number designated as being disadvantaged; the criteria for so designating these schools; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28419/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThere are a total of 3,283 primary and 746 post primary schools in the State. Of these, 312 primary and 203 post-primary schools are designated disadvantaged.
A number of socioeconomic indicators were used for the selection of schools under this scheme, such as the proportion of pupils at entry whose family resided in local authority housing, flats or in non-permanent accommodation, held medical cards and those in receipt of unemployment benefit or assistance. Giving Children an Even Break, which was introduced in 2001, subsumes the previous process of designation of primary schools that serve areas of educational disadvantage and my Department's approach is now refined to ensure that the individual "at risk" pupils are targeted. Rather than the old method of designating additional schools, my Department now provides support that is commensurate with the levels of concentration in schools of pupils with characteristics that are associated with educational disadvantage and early school leaving.
Primary schools participating in Giving Children an Even Break are in receipt of a range of additional supports, including teacher posts and other non-teaching supports to be targeted at disadvantaged pupils. The additional supports to be provided reflect the level of concentration of pupils from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in each school invited to participate in the programme.
These levels of disadvantage were established as a result of a comprehensive survey of primary schools carried out by the Educational Research Centre in March-April 2000 at the request of my Department. Over 2,300 primary schools identified as having pupils enrolled with characteristics of disadvantage are participating in Giving Children an Even Break. Any school in which there is at least one pupil which satisfied any of the criteria associated with socioeconomic disadvantage is entitled to additional resources under Giving Children an Even Break scheme. Resources are allocated to schools on a sliding scale and schools with greater proportions of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds are allocated proportionally more resources than those with fewer numbers of such pupils.
