Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 March 2017
50. Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher asked the Minister for Education and Skills the reason for the non-inclusion of certain schools in County Donegal that were unsuccessful in obtaining DEIS status following the recent designation; the process used in determining the designations and the appeals mechanism open to those unsuccessful schools; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10121/17]
Amharc ar fhreagra51. Deputy Pat The Cope Gallagher asked the Minister for Education and Skills the reason for the non-inclusion of certain schools for DEIS designation while at the same time designating adjoining schools within the same communities and districts; the appeals processes open to the school authorities regarding their failure to obtain DEIS status; his plans for further designations in the near future; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10122/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 50 and 51 together.
DEIS is my Department's main policy initiative to tackle educational disadvantage. The DEIS Plan for 2017 sets out our vision for future intervention in the critical area of social inclusion in education policy.
A key element of DEIS Plan 2017 is the availability of a new identification process for the assessment of schools for inclusion in DEIS using centrally held CSO and DES data.
The key data sources are the DES Primary Online Database (POD) and Post-Primary Online (PPOD) Databases, and CSO data from the National Census of Population as represented in the Pobal HP Index for Small Areas which is a method of measuring the relative affluence or disadvantage of a particular geographical area. Variables used in the compilation of the HP Index include those related to demographic growth, dependency ratios, education levels, single parent rate, overcrowding, social class, occupation and unemployment rates. This data is combined with pupil data, anonymised and aggregated to small area, to provide information on the relative level of concentrated disadvantage present in the pupil cohort of individual schools. This data is applied uniformly across all the schools in the country. Further information on the development of the identification process is available in the DEIS Review report which can be found on my Department's website at http://www.education.ie/en/Schools-Colleges/Services/DEIS-Delivering-Equality-of-Opportunity-in-Schools-/.
In its initial application, the new identification model has identified that there are schools in disadvantaged areas, not previously included in DEIS, whose level of disadvantage is significantly higher than many schools already in the programme. Accordingly, we are moving as a first step to include these schools within the DEIS School Support Programme.
Schools which have not been included at this stage, including the schools referred to by the Deputy, are those which have not been identified as having the highest levels of concentrated disadvantage amongst their pupil cohort, under the new model which is fair and objective. It should be noted that each school’s level of disadvantage is based the CSO small area of population in which the student cohort of the school is resides.
The new DEIS Plan provides for a verification process and any school wishing to seek verification of the information used to assess the level of disadvantage of its pupil cohort may submit an application for same to social_inclusion@education.gov.ie.
