Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 November 2022
104. Deputy Paul McAuliffe asked the Minister for Education the progress that she has made to date in bringing school completion officers back under the remit of her Department; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [57489/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraOn 1 January 2021, responsibility for education welfare functions, including the administration of the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme, SCP, transferred from the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to my Department. The SCP forms part of the Tusla education support service, TESS. While the arrangements between Tusla and the SCP are not impacted by the change in ministerial responsibility, Tusla now reports to my Department in respect of the SCP, which is funded by my Department via Tusla.
The SCP was introduced in 2002 by my Department and the programme is now a central element of DEIS, my Department’s main policy initiative to address educational disadvantage at school level. The SCP delivers a range of local interventions in disadvantaged communities that support the retention of young people in education. The programme enables local communities to develop tailored strategies to maximise the participation levels of those at risk of early school-leaving in the education process. It entails targeting individual young people of school-going age, both in and out of school, and arranging supports to address inequalities in education access, participation and outcomes.
There are currently 122 school completion projects with local management committees. The 2022 allocation for the programme is €26.9 million and additional funding will be provided later this year to allow new DEIS urban primary and post-primary schools to access the SCP service. At present, management of the school completion programme initiatives, including the employment of staff, occurs at local level.
Since my Department took over responsibility for the school completion programme in January 2021, I have secured additional funding to provide for an extension of SCP supports to 28 additional schools that were included in DEIS for the first time in September 2017 and a 5% overall increase in funding for the school completion programme, effective from September 2021. In addition, I negotiated a further increase of 5% for the SCP under budget 2023.
The initial focus of the transfer of the school completion programme has been very much on the development of the legislative platform to support the transfer of functions from the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and the process in that respect was recently completed. My Department is now moving on to consider all aspects of the programme, including governance and structures for SCP and all aspects involved therein.
