Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 June 2022
33. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Education the number of appeals that have been lodged with her Department in 2022 in respect of the granting of DEIS status; the number of successful appeals; the number of unsuccessful appeals; the reasons therefor; if all relevant schools have been notified about the outcome of their appeals; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34703/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraIn March I announced a major expansion of the DEIS – Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme. This announcement meant that, for the first time since 2017, the programme is being significantly expanded and eligible schools will now gain access to targeted supports to address educational disadvantage. This will add an additional €32million to the Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the 2023 allocation to a total of in the region of €180million. Schools were identified for inclusion in the programme through the refined DEIS identification model which is an objective, statistics based model. Schools were not required to apply for inclusion in the DEIS programme and the model has been applied fairly and equally to all schools.
My Department is committed to ensuring that all schools are treated equally and fairly in the manner in which they have been identified for inclusion in the DEIS programme. Schools which were not satisfied with the outcome following the application of the DEIS identification model to their school enrolment data have been provided with the opportunity to have that outcome reviewed.
Circular 0019/2022, available on the gov.ie website, outlined the details of this appeals process . Schools had until 5pm on Friday April 29th to submit an appeal. Appeals were received from 197 schools out of 3832 mainstream primary and post primary schools in Ireland, indicating that just under 95% of schools were satisfied with the application of the model to their school enrolment data. All appeals submitted have now been processed by my Department and schools have been notified of the outcome.
Following the completion of the DEIS appeals review, an additional 11 primary and 1 post-primary school will be included in the DEIS programme from September 2022. An additional 4 schools have been reclassified as Urban Band 1. Full details of the schools to be included in the DEIS programme from September 2022 are available on the gov.ie website.
The DEIS appeals process was applied fairly across all appellants and the results are final. The Department of Education will continue to support schools to deliver high quality, inclusive teaching and learning to students and young learners.
It is important to note that the extension of the DEIS programme to new schools is just one phase of work in for an inclusive education system which supports all learners to achieve their potential. While the DEIS programme supports those schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage, I recognise that there are students at risk of educational disadvantage in all schools. Conscious of this, and recognising the need to target resources to those schools who need them most, the next phase of work will explore the allocation of resources to schools to tackle educational disadvantage. Part of this programme of work will involve consultation with all relevant stakeholders and will also consider insights from data following the application of the refined DEIS identification model.
In addition to this, following the National Census 2022 held on the 3rd April last it is envisaged that an updated HP Deprivation Index will be generated by Pobal and will be available in Q3 of 2023. My Department will engage with Pobal in relation to this process. The updated HP Deprivation Index can be considered by my Department to inform future resource allocation to tackle educational disadvantage.
