Cathal Crowe
Ceist:190. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Education and Youth the main policy achievements of her Department since 22 January 2025; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [70521/25]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 10 December 2025
Ceisteanna (190)
Freagraí scríofa
In June this year, the Department of Education and Youth published the Education Plan. This is the Department’s annual plan, which sets out high level priorities and associated actions for the coming year. These priorities are derived from the Department’s Statement of Strategy, which sets out the vision, mission and strategic goals that guides the Department of Education and Youth’s work programme. The Department of Education and Youth’s goal has been to deliver high quality and inclusive education for all children and young people that addresses their needs, interests and ambitions. The delivery of actions under the Education Plan will be monitored and the Department will issue biannual progress reports.
Significant achievements to date this year include:
Primary Curriculum
• Published in September 2025, the redeveloped Primary School Curriculum is the first major update since 1999 and applies to all primary and special schools. The redeveloped curriculum marks a major milestone in primary education.
Junior Cycle
• On 22 April 2025, my Department announced changes to the Junior Cycle grade bands aimed at better reflecting student work and achievement.
• There are the same number of grade bands with the top four grade descriptors (Distinction, Higher Merit, Merit, and Achieved) being evenly distributed in bands of fifteen percentage points. This change has resulted in higher numbers of students achieving Distinction and Higher Merit grades.
Senior Cycle
• In February 2025 Creative Connections was launched, a pilot partnership programme aiming to promote collaboration, encourage creativity and enhance educational outcomes for children impacted by social disadvantage in Ireland and Northern Ireland. In July 2025, the Department launched a new data mapping tool to chart the engagement of schools and Youthreach centres across the country with Creative Youth initiatives.
Social, Personal and Health Education
• In January, the Department issued a circular advising post-primary schools of changes to the Social Education Leaving Cert Applied (LCA) Module Descriptor following the introduction of the new Senior Cycle Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) specification. As set out in Circular 12/2025, the Senior Cycle SPHE specification replaces the LCA Social Education module 1 (Social and Health Education 1) and module 4 (Social and Health Education 2). These changes will take effect for all LCA students entering 5th year/year one of the LCA Programme in the 2025/2026 academic year.
Physical Education
• The second phase of the Pilot Programme in Physical Activity in Teaching and Learning was launched in April 2025 and in November, the Active School Flag Post-Primary initiative was launched.
Teacher Workforce Measures
• A review of factors affecting teacher supply in Ireland commenced this year and included a meeting between a range of education stakeholders, held in May. This two-year project involves consultations with key stakeholders and will create a strategic plan for managing Ireland’s teaching workforce.
• In March 2025, this Department initiated a process to move towards a mandatory assessed placement period in a special education needs setting for all student teachers, supported by appropriate modules. In April, the Teaching Council issued a survey across 53 accredited primary and post-primary programmes.
• Insights from this survey informed a draft Guidance Note which was the subject of formal consultation with ITE providers and Education partners in November. This draft Guidance Note will be considered by the Education Committee and Council Board in December. Higher Education Institutes will implement the measure on a voluntary basis from September 2026, with compulsory implementation dependent on its inclusion in accreditation standards.
• In April 2025, a new measure to address ongoing challenges and boost teacher supply was announced. Teachers taking up their first contract in a viable teaching post in September 2025, will become eligible for a permanent contract in September 2026.
• In October 2025 the revised Teaching Council (Registration) Regulations 2025 were signed into law via Statutory Instrument 482 2025. These revised regulations allow teachers who qualified overseas to undertake their induction in the State for a time-limited period up to 31 December 2027 and are designed to strengthen the supply of qualified teachers.
• The regulations incorporate the mechanism enabling student teachers to register with the Teaching Council, allowing student teachers in the third or fourth year of their programmes to undertake limited substitute teaching.
• Teachers' Professional Journeys: The First Decade is a first-of-its-kind longitudinal study on teaching in Ireland, launched in December. It will encompass all primary, post-primary and further education teacher graduates from the classes of 2019, 2022 and 2026 and explore teachers’ early career experiences as they complete initial teacher education and become established in the profession.
Support for school principals
• In June, measures to reduce restrictions on jobsharers and those on a career break from working as substitutes in primary and post-primary schools have been extended to the next school year. In addition, the measure allowing post-primary teachers to provide up to 35 additional hours of substitute cover per term under the Teaching Hours Extension Scheme was also extended to the next school year in June.
• This year my Department has begun a trial of new administrative supports and arrangements for principals and boards of management to reduce the non-educational aspect of their workloads. These new posts have the title of Administrative Executives and are being introduced in three primary and three post primary schools.
Capitation
• The Department secured €39 million in Budget 2026 towards increased capitation funding for primary, post-primary and special schools to provide additional financial support towards their running costs. This will see an increase in the standard capitation rates paid to schools of €50 per pupil for primary schools from €224 to €274 and of €20 per student for post-primary schools from €386 to €406.
This will also allow for an increase of €20 in capitation rates for Urban Band One DEIS primary schools, increasing the mainstream pupil rate in these schools to €294.
• The increased capitation rates will also see special schools now receive the same rates of mainstream capitation, for young people aged 12 and over, as for their peers in mainstream post-primary schools. These increases will take effect from September 2026. This funding will benefit schools around the country in managing their day-to-day running costs.
Convention on Education
• In July 2025, the Department announced that it would host a Convention on Education, bringing together all stakeholders in education. The Convention on Education will be a once in a generation opportunity for children, young people, parents, educators and wider society to help shape Ireland’s education system for decades to come. The Convention will comprise 150 participants across four groups: 1) children and young people, 2) parents and guardians, 3) school staff and early years educators and 4) Education stakeholders.
• The Convention will meet four times over weekends in March, May, September and November 2026 to discuss key issues and make recommendations on the future of education. The focus will be mainly on primary and post-primary education but will include the transitions children make from early childhood education to primary and from post-primary to further and higher education. The report of the Convention will inform the department’s long-term strategy, “Our Schools, Our Future”.
Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS)
• Budget 2026 allocated an additional €16.5 million in 2026, rising to €48 million in 2027, to introduce a DEIS plus scheme and for the implementation of the new DEIS Strategy. This is the single biggest full-year investment in tackling educational disadvantage since the DEIS programme was established.
Traveller and Roma
• A TRES (Traveller and Roma Education Strategy) Oversight Group was established in January 2025 and has met three times to date. The group is responsible for monitoring progress and overseeing the implementation of actions contained within the TRES over the six-year period. It also oversees the implementation of education-related actions from the National Traveller and Roma Inclusion Strategy 2024–2030 (NTRIS II). Membership includes representatives from Traveller and Roma organisations. The first progress report was published in March 2025 and the second in July 2025. The third progress report will be published shortly.
• The recruitment process for the appointment of 15 community link workers to support Traveller and Roma children and young people and those most at risk of educational disadvantage is well underway. Once appointed, the community link worker will work in DEIS and non-DEIS schools with high Traveller and Roma enrolments.
School books
• In February 2025, the Department announced the details of the final phase of the Post-Primary Schoolbooks Scheme. Free schoolbooks and core classroom resources will be provided to all students in post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme from the 2025/26 school year. Some 400,000 students, enrolled in approximately 672 post-primary schools and over 80 special schools, will benefit from the extension of the scheme.
• In total, €170 million has been allocated to provide free schoolbooks for some 940,000 children and young people enrolled in primary, post-primary and special schools in the Free Education Scheme, from the start of the 2025/26 school year. This means, for the first time ever, all children and young people enrolled in primary, special and post-primary schools in the Free Education Scheme will be provided with schoolbooks and core classroom resources.
School attendance and completion
• A programme of work to develop and implement a new shared service employment framework for the School Completion Programme (SCP) is steadily advancing, ensuring that the future employment and governance framework for the SCP is robust, sustainable and supports the further development of this programme.
• In September, the Department launched a national multimedia campaign to promote the importance of regular school attendance to students and parents and Anseo a new evidence-based framework announced in May this year to help schools analyse and respond to attendance data, working with the Tusla Education Support Service. Sixty schools have been offered Anseo from the start of the 2025/26 school year and Anseo will be gradually scaled to all schools by September 2028.
School Transport
• The School Transport Scheme issued over 180,000 tickets to students for the 2025/2026 school year. This figure includes over 24,200 children and young people with special educational needs.
• A total of 14 pilot projects were continued for the 2025/2026 school year and further pilots have been approved for the 2025/2026 school year. These pilots will test the revised scheme eligibility criteria. Work is also advancing on a number of projects including e-Ticketing and digital mapping, with e-ticketing technology already being used in some of the pilot areas.
Gaeltacht and Irish language education
• In November, my Department launched a new Policy for Irish-Medium Education outside of the Gaeltacht, which will support the growth and development of the Irish-medium sector. A Taskforce on Models of Provision for Irish-Medium Education, which provides a platform for collaboration between the Department and key stakeholders, has since been established under this Policy.
• Also In November, my Department published a new Action Plan for Irish in English-Medium Schools. This plan is informed by national consultation, research, and policy and practice for minority languages in other jurisdictions.
Digital policy and AI
• In June 2025, the Department of Education and Youth issued a circular about the requirement to implement a policy to ban (in the case of primary schools) and restrict (in the case of post-primary schools) the use of, and access to, personal mobile phones for the duration of the school day.
• The Department published Guidance on AI in Schools in October. This serves as an initial step toward the safe, effective and responsible use of AI in schools, with further development anticipated from Ireland’s partnership with the EU Commission in the multi-country project to develop strategies and tools for AI implementation in school education, as announced in April this year.
Wellbeing
• In April 2025 the Department launched Neart, the new national programme of mental health and wellbeing resources and training for post-primary schools, delivered in a partnership between the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and Jigsaw - The National Centre for Youth Mental Health.
• The first Cineáltas Implementation Report was published in July 2025. Cineáltas is our whole-education approach to preventing and addressing bullying behaviour in schools. In its first year of implementation, work on of 51 of the 61 actions commenced and five of these actions were fully implemented.
• The “Bí Cineálta Procedures to Prevent and Address Bullying Behaviour for Primary and Post-Primary Schools” began implementation in schools from the beginning of the 25/26 school year.
Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse
• In July 2025, the Supports for Survivors of Residential Institutional Abuse Act 2025 was passed into law. The Act has two main purposes – to enable the delivery of ongoing health and education supports to survivors of abuse in residential institutions and to allow the formal dissolution of the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Board (Caranua).
• In July 2025, Government agreement was secured for the establishment of an independent Commission of Investigation into the Handling of Historical Child Sexual Abuse in Day and Boarding Schools, under the Commissions of Investigation Act 2004. This decision was informed by the work of a high-level Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) which considered the recommendations of the 2024 report of the Scoping Inquiry into historical abuse in day and boarding schools run by religious orders.
• Mr. Justice Michael MacGrath has commenced his role as Chair of the Commission of Investigation effective 1 October 2025 and the necessary preparations for establishing the Commission are currently under way. The Commission will make its report to the Minister for Education and Youth within five years.
Special Education
• The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) sanctioned over 400 special classes for the 2025/26 school year. Over 300 new special school places have been created.
• In March 2025, the Department of Education and Youth published a new circular, “Review of Enrolment in a Special Class” was published to support schools with the review process for children and young people enrolled in a special class. Alongside this development, the criteria for enrolment in special classes for children with Developmental Language Disorder or Speech Sound Disorder was updated.
• In April 2025, the Department announced the Special Needs Assistant (SNA) Redeployment Scheme will be operated by the NCSE and, for the first time, allow SNAs in posts which may no longer be required for reasons such as falling enrolments, reduced care needs or changing demographics, to be redeployed to a school which has a vacant post.
• In May 2025, the Department of Education and Youth announced new measures to support forward planning for special education provision for the 2026/2027 school year and beyond.
• Also in May 2025, the Department published the Report on Focus Groups with Teachers on the role of the Special Needs Assistant (SNA).
• In June 2025, my Department published the review of the Education of Person with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act 2024. The review comprised of over 28,000 responses to online surveys, including 900 responses from children and young people to an innovative easy access survey, and participation in focus groups by 91 adults and 94 students and young people from mainstream, special and Irish medium schools, as well as adults who had left school. The process of reviewing the EPSEN Act brought to light areas where participants considered that changes or developments in existing legislation, policy or practice were required and a total of 51 recommendations are presented in the report.
• In June 2025, the Department announced government approval to establish the Education Therapy Service. This new service is currently being developed for roll out in some special schools at a later stage in the 2025/26 school year.
• In October 2025, as part of Budget 2026, a further special school package was announced to support increased investment in teacher professional learning in special education, additional funding for assistive technologies and enhanced capitation which will benefit, in particular, children in special schools.
• In November the Department of Education and Youth published a circular to advise schools regarding the revised criteria to access support under the enhanced Irish Sign Language (ISL) Scheme.
Child protection
• Updated Child Protection Procedures for Schools 2025 were published in May 2025. The updated procedures were developed in collaboration with the education partners. They give direction regarding identifying and responding to child protection concerns, and the process for continued support of the child.
Lifelong Guidance
• In May 2025, the National Policy Group for Lifelong Guidance, chaired by my Department, launched the National Map of Lifelong Guidance Services. The map is interactive and increases the visibility and awareness of lifelong guidance, employment and career advisory services across Ireland.
• In May it was also announced that DCU will provide a new outreach course for post-primary teachers to train as guidance counsellors in Munster beginning in January 2026, and my Department is supporting this initiative.
Gifted students
• My Department is currently developing a suitable approach of policy and practice for students who are exceptionally able or gifted. Actions undertaken include commissioning bespoke research on international best practice, consulting with relevant stakeholders, and running new initiatives in a number of schools and education centres.
• These initiatives include the Sabria pilot, which is led by an academic expert, and fosters local collaboration between primary and post-primary schools to establish how they can most effectively work together to support the needs of exceptionally able students. A launch event for the programme took place in March of this year, involving stakeholders from a number of schools and educational organisations. Work is ongoing to develop and embed a suitable approach.
• A further initiative, the Summer Programme for Students pilot, is currently running in two schools. It is funded through the existing Summer Programme scheme and will be in addition to the current programmes running in the schools.
Education for Sustainable Development
• A second progress report on implementation of the Second National Strategy on Education for Sustainable Development – ESD to 2030 – was published in September 2025. Also in September, the new Leaving Certificate subject “Climate Action and Sustainable Development” was introduced in 42 network schools.
• The new primary curriculum “Social and Environmental Education” was also published in September and will be introduced in primary schools along with the other new primary curricula on a phased basis from September 2026.
• The Department recently delivered over €860,000 in funding to 390 schools for projects that support implementation of ESD to 2020, with a focus on projects that include “local level action” for sustainable development.
• The Department delivered over €460,000 in funding this summer to 20 organisations delivering ESD supports to schools. In addition, almost €500,000 in funding was delivered to ten youth-led climate justice projects happening across Ireland in 2025.
Youth Affairs
• Arising from Budget 2026, an additional €8 million in current and capital funding has been allocated to Youth Affairs to support the sustainability and development of youth services.
• This year my Department received €500,000 to implement the Summer 2025 Holiday Meals Pilot Programme (Summer Meals Programme), a targeted initiative designed to address holiday hunger among young people during the post-primary school summer holidays (June–August). The programme aims to provide a hot or substantial meal to young people attending UBU Your Place Your Space youth services who are at risk of not having access to adequate nutrition during official school closure periods. 41 UBU youth services across the 16 education and training boards (ETBs) signed up to participate, with the programme officially launching on 3 June 2025.
• Under the Department’s largest youth funding scheme, UBU Your Place Your Space, €50.7 million was allocated in 2025. A further €1.2 million was provided this year to establish 10 new UBU youth services, which will deliver targeted youth worker-led support to up to 1,000 disadvantaged young people in areas of greatest need.
• In July the Department announced almost €500,000 in funding for ten youth-led climate justice projects happening across Ireland in 2025.