Debate contribution: RAISE: Failure to Tackle Educational Underachievement

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 5 November 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

5 November 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

RAISE: Failure to Tackle Educational Underachievement

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4631633

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The Minister has failed to explain his rationale for using new methodologies to define, identify and measure deprivation and educational underachievement. Under the new RAISE indicators, we see grammar and fee-paying schools in the lists of those eligible for funding. It is notable that the indicative list of eligible schools, which included 40 grammar schools and a prep school, as has been said, now appears to be gone from the DE website. To put it mildly, that suggests serious discomfort and a lack of confidence in the methodology used to identify the schools, or, to put it bluntly, the Minister has a bit of egg on his face. There is no doubt that some pupils in grammar and maybe even in fee-paying schools may experience poverty. Some may even be eligible for free school meals, but, despite what the Minister says, RAISE is not simply about extending funding to more schools and more communities. Fundamentally, it is an initiative to tackle deprivation that sees grammar and fee-paying schools eligible for funding. The scheme includes the third most affluent school in the North, where just 4% of pupils are eligible for free school meals. It also happens to be in the Minister's constituency. At the same time, schools such as Bunscoil an tSléibhe Dhuibh, where 60% of pupils are entitled to free school meals are ineligible. Square that circle, please. That seems totally counter-intuitive for a programme that aims to tackle educational underachievement and deprivation. Free school meals uptake is not a perfect indicator of deprivation, but it has worked well for some time. When it was the primary measure of deprivation, areas with some of the highest levels of poverty and housing need actually received funding. In effect, the Minister has made active, conscious choices to extend funding to wealthier communities and schools at the expense of making schools in deprived areas ineligible for funding. That is totally unacceptable. The Minister has highlighted the fact that the scheme extends across the North, rather than focusing only on urban areas, but it is still possible to have a programme that benefits working-class communities across the North. The scheme should benefit schools in deprived areas, including West Belfast, Ligoniel, Strabane, Downpatrick, South Down and West Winds Primary School in Newtownards as well, and its failure to do so is an indictment of the Minister's priorities and political decision-making. The Department has said that the fact that a school is not on the list of those eligible for funding does not mean that it cannot be involved in the programme. That is an attempt at damage limitation, to be frank. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain in what capacity schools in deprived communities might eventually be allowed to avail themselves of a programme to tackle educational underachievement and disadvantage, despite it appearing that they were not allowed to apply in the first place. The proposer of the motion also raised the issue of academic selection, and again — surprise, surprise — there is no sign from the Minister that he intends to end academic selection. It is worth repeating that academic selection perpetuates division and inequality. It amplifies middle-class advantage and acts as a barrier to a more inclusive education system. In that context and in the absence of plans to scrap academic selection, primary schools and non-selective secondary schools mitigate the worst impacts of our unequal system. When it comes to tackling educational disadvantage, our primary and non-selective secondary schools always do the heavy lifting. A scheme that fails to recognise that basic fact and fails to give those schools the resources that they desperately need is doomed to fail. The Minister recently gave the go-ahead for capital investment in seven schools out of a list of 28 that were identified in 2022. Again, questions are being asked about the Minister's methodology and how the Department has ranked the schools in need of investment. The £20 million mentioned about the RAISE programme is obviously funded by the Irish Government through the Irish fund.

If my TD colleagues are returned in the general election in the South, we will be raising this further and criticising the Minister's approach to it.

700 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:30 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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