Education plan aims to tackle costs and disadvantage
Proposals to boost apprenticeships and language teaching included
The Government has launched its firstAction Plan for Education, which includes proposals aimed at improving skills, helping students from disadvantaged areas and tackling costs for parents.
A Government statement said the three-year plan was aimed at making the Irish education and training service the best in Europe by 2026. The plan, in line with the previous Action Plan for Jobs, includes quarterly progress reports and updates at the start of each year.
Among the curriculum plans is a proposal to roll out the teaching of coding to primary schools from 2018. Computer science will be aLeaving Certificate subject, while there are processes to introduce teaching of new languages such as Mandarin at second-level and to enhance teaching of languages at third-level.
In an effort to improve skills, 100 apprenticeship schemes and 50 traineeship schemes are planned to deliver 50,000 registrations between now and 2020.
On tackling disadvantage, a new Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) plan will be published later this year. The targets will include DEIS schools hitting the national average for school retention levels within the next decade and a 30 per cent increase in the number of students from disadvantaged areas attending higher level education.
The plan also proposes new measures to tacklethe costs of schools for parents– including a requirement on schools to take consideration of the needs of parents when taking decisions that have a financial impact. Parents will also be consulted on what is described as "a strong new circular" to schools on uniform costs. There will also be extra funding for book rental schemes "as resources permit".
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