I wish to advise the Deputy that the successful schools were detailed in the press release of the 20th December 2023 www.gov.ie/en/press-release/806d0-minister-for-education-announces-trebling-of-budget-for-stem-grants-for-schools-to-47-million/. I have attached the list of schools for your information.
The split between DEIS and non-DEIS of the successful schools is as follows;
|
DEIS
|
Primary
|
Post- Primary
|
|
Urban
|
44
|
9
|
|
Rural
|
78
|
15
|
|
Non DEIS
|
Primary
|
Post- Primary
|
|
Urban
|
114
|
45
|
|
Rural
|
206
|
20
|
I can advise the Deputy that he STEM grant scheme was an action in the new STEM Education Implementation Plan published in 2023. All schools are implementing the curriculum which includes STEM, the grant was to support schools in carrying out projects to stimulate an increased interest in STEM and was an application process as with other STEM initiatives in the past such as the STEM clusters project.
When the grant scheme was announced the Department indicated that it had funding of €1.5m available. There was phenomenal demand from schools with around 3,000 applications received. In order to determine the number of valid applications those received after the deadline were discounted. Every other application received before 5pm on the 30th of November was read and saved, leaving 2,727 schools with an ask amounting to over €25m.
Given the very high number of valid applications and the budget available for the scheme, a decision was made by the Department to run a lottery, where a random number generator was used to pick out schools based on their line on the spreadsheet. The application for each school was then assessed on case by case basis with the applications read again by the evaluation team, to ensure they met the requirements as set out in the grant call. Any school deemed not to have met the requirements was removed. The procedure was then repeated until all the budget available was allocated.
The initial funding available at the time of call for applications was €1.5m. The Department worked to secure as much additional funding as possible, which amounted to €4.7m. Unfortunately, on this occasion, this additional funding fell short of the asks of over €25m. The Department is front loading the grant scheme in 2023/2024 school year and it is hoped that a further round of funding can be run this year. It means that eligible schools that were not successful in 2023 may receive funding in the future.
There was limited budget allocated to this grant scheme and all that money has been allocated. In relation to any future funding that becomes available, the Department will be in contact with schools
List of the schools granted STEM funding
