Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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This year my Department published “Forbairt 2024 Annual Statement of Priorities”, a statement of priority actions to be delivered in 2024 that elaborates upon and develops the strategic actions set out in the Statement of Strategy 2023-2025, which sets out the vision, mission and strategic goals that guides the Department’s work programme for the 2023-2025 period. The Department's Annual Reports have also been published and outline the significant work undertaken since June 2020. My Department’s goal has been to deliver high quality and inclusive education for all children and young people that addresses their needs, interests and ambitions.

Significant achievements to date include:

Investment

• As part of Budget 2023 over €50 million was allocated to provide free schoolbooks to all pupils in recognised primary schools, including special schools. More than 563,000 pupils enrolled in approximately 3,230 primary schools, including over 130 special schools benefited from the new scheme from September 2023. Funding of over €47 million was secured in 2024 to further embed the free primary schoolbooks scheme, which will continue to provide schoolbooks, workbooks and copybooks for the 2024/2025 academic year.

• As part of Budget 2024 funding of over €68 million was allocated for the extension of the scheme to provide free schoolbooks and core classroom resources to Junior Cycle students in post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme. More than 213,000 students enrolled in approximately 670 post-primary schools and over 65 special schools, will benefit from the new scheme in the coming school year.

• Since 2020 €21 million has been made available in additional capitation funding to assist schools now and longer term with increased day-today running costs. This will support a permanent restoration of funding for all primary and post-primary schools, bringing the basic rate of capitation to €200 per student in primary schools and to €345 in post-primary schools.

• My Department's budget has included provision of €323 million in education measures over a wide range of temporary measures to assist with increased cost of living pressures.

• Continued investment in new teaching posts has seen the general average primary staffing schedule reduce by three points, to a historically low level of 23:1 in 2023. This was the first time such a reduction was made in three consecutive Budgets.

• The Digital Strategy for Schools to 2027 was published in April 2022 and builds on the achievements of the previous Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020. The strategy is underpinned by an overall investment of €200m, €100m of which has already issued in grants to schools.

• In February 2024, the Department published the review of the School Transport Scheme – School Transport 2030. A phased implementation of the review’s recommendations will commence in September 2024. This will include a shared effort between my Department and the Department of Transport to pilot and introduce greater integration of the roll out of transport networks with school transport routes. The aim of this approach is to expand the provision of transport and reduce the reliance over time on individual car trips for school journeys.

Capital works

• Since 2020, my Department has invested capital funding in the region of €4.8 billion in our schools throughout the country, involving the completion of over 900 school building projects. Construction is currently underway at approximately 300 other projects, which includes 30 new school buildings. These 300 projects currently at construction involve a total State investment of over €1.2bn.

• I also recently announced that close to 90 projects, including 28 new school buildings, would be authorised to proceed from tender stage to construction over the course of 2024 and early 2025. In total, around €800 million will be invested in these projects under the Department’s Large Scale Capital Programme and Additional Accommodation Scheme for essential classroom accommodation.

• This includes a total of €280m which has issued to schools under the Minor works grant since 2020, of which €29 million in minor works funding for primary and special schools issued in April 2024. Schools had the autonomy to use this funding for maintenance and small-scale improvements to school buildings and grounds.

• The Schools PV Programme was launched in November 2023. This will assist schools in reducing their costs and their carbon footprint as part of the response to meeting the 2030 and 2050 Climate Action Plan targets.

• The ‘Procedures on the use of School Buildings and School Sports Facilities outside of School Hours’ were published in June 2024 highlighting the value and importance of school buildings and school sports facilities being used outside of school hours.

Special Education

• Since 2020 the budget for special educational needs has increased from €1.9bn to €2.7bn for 2024. Funding of €13m has been secured for the expansion of the National Council of Special Education (NCSE) to allow for an additional 161 staff. Almost 3,000 special classes are now in operation nationwide. These classes can provide for over 18,000 students. In addition, 7 new special schools have been established and 4 more have been announced for the 2024/25 school year. The number of special education teaching and special needs assistant posts has increased to over 40,000.

• In 2022, an enhanced scheme of Irish Sign Language (ISL) provision commenced. The scheme is targeted at children and young people attending primary, special and post-primary school.• In December 2022 my Department established a Special Needs Assistants Workforce Development Unit (SNAWDU) to deliver a strategic approach to SNA policy development with the objective of developing an enhanced SNA service which delivers the best outcome for children with significant care needs in our schools.

• An additional €11 million has been provided specifically targeted at special schools from September 2024 for the removal of the 15-teacher threshold for the appointment of Administrative Deputy Principals in special schools and a further 100 teaching posts targeted at special schools with post-primary aged students. The annual budget to fund the Summer Programme has risen from €20m to €40m since 2021.

• €6 million in one off funding to support a campaign to design and promote attendance in primary, post-primary and special schools. This campaign ran throughout the 2023/24 school year with the support of Tusla Education Support Services.

Teacher education

• In 2022, I announced the provision of a new postgraduate programme to upskill registered Post Primary teachers teaching Social, Personal and Health Education/Relationships and Sexuality Education (SPHE/RSE).

• The Initial Teacher Education (ITE) Policy Statement was published in March 2023. The policy statement recognises that ITE is the first step on the continuum of teacher education and acknowledges the commitment to excellence from all involved in preparing teachers of the future. It also recognises the benefit that greater clarity will provide to all in the system.

• A new Integrated Teacher Education Support Service (Oide) launched in September 2023. This system sets out a new vision to support the Professional Learning of teachers and school leaders in Ireland through the development of high quality, innovative and responsive Professional Learning.

Curriculum development

There have been a number of initiatives progressed:• Since 2021, partnership between my Department and Science Foundation Ireland has facilitated the contribution of over €1.8 million to support successful projects under the SFI Discover Programme.

• In March 2022, I committed to the introduction of Senior Cycle Level 1 and Level 2 Learning Programmes for those then in first year to build on the equivalent Junior Cycle programmes for students with special educational needs. The new Programme Statement and initial modules have been developed by the NCCA. These are expected to be available for implementation in schools from September 2024.

• In June 2022, my Department published the 2nd National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development. ESD aims to ensure that all learners have the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development and is a key enabler for the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and agenda 2030 and our National Climate Action Plan 2023. This includes the new Leaving Certificate subject “Climate Action and Sustainable Development” to be rolled out in schools from September 2025. A new area of learning “Social and Environmental Education” will also be introduced from September 2025 under the Primary Curriculum Framework. A Sustainability Toolkit for Schools was published in September 2023, supporting schools in implementing the School Sector Climate Action Mandate and in adopting a Sustainability Policy Statement for their school. This is cosponsored by the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

• In March 2023, the new Primary Curriculum Framework for all primary and special schools was launched. This is the first curriculum framework for primary education in Ireland and will shape the work of all primary and special schools for the coming years.

• Also in March 2023, the STEM Education Implementation Plan to 2026, was launched jointly with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.

• March 2023 also saw the launch of the new Creative Youth Plan 2023-2027 for children and young people, jointly with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

• In May 2023 the NCCA published the redeveloped Junior Cycle SPHE specification, which was rolled out in schools from September 2023.

• In September 2023 the new Primary Mathematics Curriculum was launched.

• Also in September 2023, I announced a significant acceleration of parts of the reimagined Senior Cycle programme, with national introduction of the first tranche of revised Leaving Certificate subject specifications in schools in 2025, two years earlier than previously planned. Draft specifications for six of the subjects in this first tranche, including Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Arabic, Latin, and Ancient Greek, were published on 7 December 2023 and a public consultation on the drafts is open until 23 February 2024. Tranche 1 will also include the introduction of 2 new subjects (Drama, Film and Theatre Studies and Climate Action and Sustainable Development), to be rolled out on a phased basis from the beginning of the 2025/26 school year.

• In March 2024 an interim progress report and the second Implementation Plan for Languages Connect, Ireland’s Strategy for Foreign Languages in Education 2017 – 2026 were published. Four new Leaving Certificate curricular languages were introduced to schools in September 2020 (Lithuanian, Mandarin Chinese, Polish and Portuguese) and were examined for the first time in summer 2022 with circa. 1,500 students sitting one of the four exams.

• In May 2024 Ireland’s Literacy, Numeracy and Digital Literacy Strategy 2024-2033: Every Learner from Birth to Young Adulthood, and a supporting five-year implementation plan, were published.

• Foreign Languages are to be introduced in senior classes at primary level on a phased basis from September 2025 under the new Primary Curriculum Framework. In advance of that, 1,410 primary schools have applied to participate in the 10-week sampler module in 2024/25 for year 4 students.

Social Inclusion

• The Supporting Traveller and Roma in education pilot project (STAR) was established in 2019, under the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy, with the aims of improving attendance, participation and retention in specific Traveller and Roma communities regionally. There are four pilot areas: Galway, Wexford, Dublin and Cork. Additional resources provided include an additional Educational Welfare Officer (EWO), an additional Home School Community Liaison coordinator (HSCL) and two Traveller/Roma community education workers from the local communities employed by local Traveller/Roma support groups.

• In January 2021, responsibility for the administration of the Schools Completion Programme (SCP) transferred back to my Department. Additional funding was secured 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 (SCP). In addition, a further increase of 5% for SCP was negotiated under Budget 2023.

• The single largest expansion of the DEIS programme was announced in 2022, which benefited 361 schools. The programme now includes in the region of 1,200 schools and supports approximately 260,000 students. 1 in 4 students and 30% of schools are now supported in the programme. This expansion added an additional €32million to the Department’s expenditure on the DEIS programme from 2023, bringing the overall allocation for the programme over €180 million.

• A separate initiative, funded under Dormant Account Funds provides for 10 new Home School Community Liaison (HSCL) coordinators in 14 non-DEIS post-primary schools with high numbers of Traveller and Roma students. In addition, continued funding has allowed the creation of a new coordinator post with responsibilities across the four STAR pilot sites and for facilitating effective information-sharing between STAR teams and the 10 new HSCL coordinators.

• A programme of work to explore the allocation of resources to schools to address educational disadvantage is currently being undertaken. To support this work, the OECD have been invited to review the current policy approach. This review will provide an independent expert opinion on the current resource allocation model for the DEIS programme. Drawing on international examples, it will inform a policy approach for an equitable distribution of supplementary resources to support students at risk of educational disadvantage attending all schools, both DEIS and non-DEIS.

Well-being

• Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying was published on 1 December 2022. It is the Department’s whole-education approach to preventing and addressing bullying in schools. Cineáltas is dedicated to the prevention and addressing of bullying, cyber bullying, racist bullying, gender identity bullying and sexual harassment, among other areas, in schools. The Implementation Plan for the Cineáltas: Action Plan on Bullying, which commits to implementing the 61 actions contained in Cineáltas within a five-year period, commenced in Q2 2023 and a number of actions have been progressed over the last year. "Bí Cineálta procedures to prevent and address bullying behaviour for primary and post-primary schools” was published in June 2024.

• Establishment of a landmark programme of counselling and mental health supports, piloted in a series of primary schools from September 2023. In 2024 a tender was published to procure services to further support well-being and mental health in post-primary schools.

Response to emerging issues

• In 2022, as a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine my Department established Regional Education and Language Teams, known as REALT, to support existing services in responding to the needs of Ukrainian and children seeking International Protection in accessing education. Their primary role is to assist in securing school places for children and to support schools in meeting the needs of children as they arise.

• My Department has prioritised enhancing English as an Additional Language (EAL) support, recognising the critical role of language proficiency in successful integration and academic achievement. 1,743 primary schools and 493 post primary schools are now receiving EAL teaching resources.

• In 2023 a scoping inquiry was established, to shape Government’s response to revelations of historical sexual abuse in schools run by religious orders. The scoping inquiry has been informed by reports and inputs from experts across a range of areas, including child protection, restorative justice and, most importantly, survivor engagement. In June 2024 the report was received by my Department.