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Minister Norma Foley.
MINISTER for Education Norma Foley TD announced a major expansion of the DEIS – Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools programme that will see the programme extended to an additional 15 schools across Kerry, including some in Tralee.
The DEIS programme is being significantly expanded and eligible schools will now gain access to targeted supports to address educational disadvantage.
Schools in the DEIS programme avail of a range of targeted supports aimed at tackling educational disadvantage, including additional classroom teaching posts, home-school community liaison coordinator posts, DEIS grant funding and access to the School Completion Programme.
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The announcement sees an additional investment of €32million per annum being allocated to the 310 schools being added to the programme nationally.
The schools being added to the programme in Kerry are:
DEIS Rural Schools
SN Mhuire De Lourdes, Lixnaw
SN An Leana Mhoir, Ballylongford
Scoil Mhuire Gan Smal, Lixnaw
Tarbert National School
Scoil Naomh Iosef, Tralee
Scoil Náisiúnta Cillín Liath, Killarney
Sn Oilibhear Naofa, Ballylongford
Ballyduff National School
DEIS Urban Band 1
Muire Gan Smal, Chapelisland
St Johns Parochial School, Tralee
S N Mhuire na mBraithre, Tralee
Holy Family Tralee
DEIS Urban Band 2
Listowel Presentation Primary
Naomh Chartaigh, Castleisland
Realt Na Maidne, Listowel
Minister Foley said: “I am delighted to announce today the largest-ever single investment in the DEIS programme and in particular the addition of 15 new schools in Kerry. I have no doubt that today’s announcement will be of enormous benefit to the staff, students, parents and guardians in these schools.
“The DEIS programme is an internationally recognised, proven programme that provides targeted resources to schools with the highest levels of concentrated educational disadvantage to supports their students to have an equal opportunity to achieve their potential in education.
“This announcement follows an intensive undertaking of work by the DEIS technical group, which involved valuable input from stakeholders. The refined DEIS identification model builds on the objectivity and fairness of the 2017 version, but now captures a greater breadth of disadvantage and accounts for severity of disadvantage through the application of a weighted process. It also takes into consideration the significant educational disadvantage experienced by Traveller and Roma learners and of students residing in direct provision or emergency homeless accommodation. Using this approach we can extend the additional targeted supports of the DEIS programme to those schools serving high concentrations of students at risk of educational disadvantage and be confident that the largest investment to date in the DEIS programme is being provided to those schools most in need.”
From September 2022, these schools will access all supports under the programme to match their respective band. Schools are assigned to the DEIS bands based on the location of the school and their level of concentrated educational disadvantage.
