Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Joining us today we have Dr Anne Devlin and, remotely, Professor Selina McCoy, adjunct professor of sociology, both from the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI). You are both very welcome. The purpose of the session is to reflect on the links between socio-economic disadvantage and educational underachievement and, hopefully, the opportunity to do some cross-jurisdictional and best-practice comparisons.

I hand over to you. I am not sure which of you is going to lead the initial presentation, but I ask for opening remarks of up to 10 minutes, and then we will move into questions and answers. We are fairly tight on time, so I will keep it to five minutes per inquiry from each member.

Dr Anne Devlin (Economic and Social Research Institute): Hi, everybody. I am an economist at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin. That is always a mouthful. I know that it is hard to tell, but I am actually from the North. You might not have noticed with my accent. [Laughter.]

I am joined by my colleague Professor Selina McCoy, who leads the education research in the institute, so you are getting the E and the S of the ESRI. You have got our written submission. I will go through it briefly. There might be a couple of things that have been added in since it was sent to the Clerk.

I begin by highlighting some key evidence on educational disadvantage in Ireland, drawing in particular on the Growing up in Ireland (GUI) study, as well as a number of recent research projects, most of which are the remit of Selina and her team, before moving on to comparative research, particularly a study comparing education systems North and South published in 2022, which was work by me and my colleagues in the institute. GUI is the national longitudinal study of children, which has provided important insights into educational experiences and gaps between social groups in the Republic of Ireland and the processes and factors underpinning them. As well as the research output using GUI, the dataset in itself is notable to the Committee, and we may come to talk about that.

Moving to the research, the first focus is on early educational development, examining how parents' approach to learning at home and children's exposure to early childhood education and care shapes differences in reading ability. The evidence shows that both children's gender and their family's social class influence their cognitive development between ages three and nine. Parental reading, participation in early childhood education and care, and longer time at school were all found to facilitate language development and partly explain differences in reading scores at age nine, although strong direct impacts of social class remained, even after controlling for other things.

While previous research indicates that parental academic expectations and students' self-concepts contribute to the link between low socio-economic status and low educational attainment, few studies have examined socio-economic differences in the temporal changes of these constructs across the school years. Our research provides new insights into the role of academic self-concepts, parental expectations and teacher-child interactions in the development of socio-economic status differences in educational attainment. The results show that bolstering children's academic self-concepts prior to the secondary school transition, curbing steeper declines among socio-economically disadvantaged children and encouraging parental education expectations could reap significant long-term rewards for young people's educational attainment.

Teacher-child interactions moderate parental expectations and are a particularly salient influence for socio-economically disadvantaged children and those with low parental expectations. A recent study on schools in the voluntary secondary sector in Ireland provides valuable insights into student experiences across diverse school settings and the role of school social mix in shaping student experience. The study highlights wide diversity across school categories in social mix and student need. For example, among the delivering equality of opportunity In schools (DEIS) schools participating in the study — you have been hearing about them today already — the proportion of students identifying with SEN range from 8% in one school to 40% in another. That is quite a stark difference. Students attending DEIS schools were found to benefit in curricular provision, with a strong emphasis on literacy skills; opportunities to participate in sports, particularly for girls; and the role and decision-making of, and the nature of their interaction with, their teachers. Stakeholders appreciate the role of the additional resources that are received through the DEIS programme in enabling schools to meaningfully support students through, for example, the home school community liaison officers that Paul talked about, the school completion programme and breakfast clubs. Those supports have become more critical in the context of rising school absences post COVID-19. Department of Children figures show noticeable differences in absences between DEIS and non-DEIS schools.

At secondary level, there has been recent research into growing student participation in the "grinds" or shadow education system in Ireland, particularly the impacts of the widening of inequality in educational attainment that that will lead to. While 60% of final-year students engage in such tuition, there are wide social differentials in participation, not just in social class but as a product of the motivation and expectation of students and their parents. Students highlight how the grinds culture has become normalised as an accepted component of exam success for many students, but family resources shape access to it.

Finally, a body of work has been examining intersectionality in educational disadvantage and gaining an understanding of how disability and socio-economic factors, particularly family resources and school context, shape school and post-school educational outcomes. The evidence reveals multiple challenges facing young people with disabilities in Ireland, reflecting in particular the direct and indirect impact of socio-economic disadvantage at family, school and community level. All else being equal, children who are identified as having a socio-emotional or behavioural difficulty are less likely to progress to higher education (HE) in Ireland. The results again highlight the importance for later educational outcomes of attendance, engagement and achievement during primary and early secondary years and of parental expectations. That has important implications for inclusive education and policy to address educational disadvantage.

The evidence shows the clustering of student with complex needs in DEIS schools and in economically vulnerable households and the significance of those factors in students' post-school pathways. While the DEIS programme has shown strong results in tackling gaps in achievement, attendance and engagement, adequately supporting students with the complexity of needs that they face demands more resources and is an issue for some schools. Two challenges in particular emerge from the research. Schools serving disadvantaged communities that are not part of the DEIS programme struggle to meet high levels of need. The programme as it stands is not sufficiently responsive to address the changing needs that schools face. A second, perhaps larger, problem relates to the capacity of schools to meet growing student and community need, particularly in a context of funding shortfall for schools. School leaders and wider stakeholders ask how much schools can realistically do. Plans for a DEIS+ category to provide enhanced resources to the most deprived communities in Ireland are welcome, given the evidence so far. Alongside DEIS+, the ESRI has recently commenced work on developing a monitoring and evaluation framework for the DEIS programme and identifying where changes in policy and resource allocation might be required.

I turn to the comparative research. In 2021-22, we undertook a mixed-methods study of education and training systems from primary to third-level education in Ireland and Northern Ireland which offered much insight into the nature of the two systems and their similarities and differences. The study found sizeable differences between Ireland and the North in educational attainment which persist even when the underlying demographic differences are taken into account. The proportion of the population with the lowest levels of education was similar in the two jurisdictions in 2005, but, by the time that we looked at data in early 2020 — 15 years later — it had fallen to a much greater degree in Ireland than it had in the North, where it fell only marginally in that time; there was real divergence. There are also noticeable differences in early school leaving. Depending on the definition that we use, that rate is about two to three times higher in Northern Ireland than it is in the Republic. The improvements and better outcomes over those 15 years are partly explained by the DEIS programme.

The study found pronounced barriers for students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds in both jurisdictions, with them having poorer grades at secondary level than their peers from more advantaged backgrounds. Wider inequality in exam grades was found in Ireland; however, we believe that that reflects the feeding through of early school leaving. Expectations of going on to HE in both jurisdictions vary considerably by student social profile, with lower expectations found among those from working-class backgrounds. Further education (FE) is commonly perceived in the North and South as the second-best option. One person that we spoke to talked about it having Cinderella status compared with HE. However, in qualitative work, it felt like this was more apparent in Northern Ireland. There are ongoing changes in policy in Ireland to resolve that by bringing FE applications into the Central Applications Office (CAO) process, which was typically for HE applications. Important differences also occur across the two systems with regard to post-school opportunities provided. In particular, stakeholders in Northern Ireland emphasised the challenges of having a multiplicity of providers and duplication of courses. We are seeing post-secondary vocational options being offered typically in FE but also now in HE in schools, and A levels, which were traditionally the remit of schools, are being offered in FE as well.

To address the educational attainment gap and facilitate more meaningful progression routes, we argued for the need to show the value of taking FE courses for young people and to ensure clarity around pathways from secondary education into FE or from FE into HE if those are the sorts of routes that children and young people want to go down. The study also found similar findings to those already mentioned today about DEIS and the findings from the Ireland-specific work. Many stakeholders that we spoke to in the Republic spoke highly of the DEIS programme and the benefits that it brought. As above, that was particularly in the form of the home school community liaison officers, breakfast clubs and the holistic wraparound approach that the DEIS programme took. Interestingly, many stakeholders in Northern Ireland also brought up the DEIS programme. They were very aware of what was going on South of the border.

With regard to funding for educational disadvantage in the North, many teachers found that, as the money was not ring-fenced, it was not always going to support disadvantage, given the issues, financial constraints and emergencies that schools were sometimes dealing with. That reiterates what was found by the Northern Ireland Audit Office report some time ago. In follow-up work that was published in 2023, we examined the intergenerational transmission of education in Ireland and Northern Ireland. We found that the marginal effect of the impact of low parental education on the probability of a child having a poor educational outcome was about twice as large in Northern Ireland as was the case in Ireland. With regard to educational mobility, 38% of young people in Ireland exceeded their parents' level of education, compared with 29% in the North. It is probable that academic selection in Northern Ireland and the economic cost and social inequality associated with the selection system, and also segregation more broadly, is a contributory factor limiting the extent to which the education system in Northern Ireland facilitates intergenerational education and, down the line, earnings mobility.

On data — this was not in the written submission — it is worth noting that there is considerably less research in Northern Ireland than there is in the South looking at specifics of the education system. That is for a variety of reasons, but one is the lack of data. That is something that we bring up regardless of what area we are looking at. We are particularly concerned about recent developments in data infrastructure which will make that even more problematic, for example, divergence because of the UK no longer being in EU datasets and the North not taking part in the most recent round of the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) survey because of financial limitations. That is a study that we used in the 2022 report, and it is very useful. However, I note that the longitudinal educational outcomes database is due next year, which is very exciting, if that is the right word.

Briefly, on a higher level, at EU level, an expert group on quality investment in education and training assessed approaches to equity and inclusion across the UK. The evidence shows that education systems that aim at reducing inequality in students' learning conditions are the ones that get better academic results and improve students' well-being. Given that socio-economic inequalities in cognitive and socio-emotional development emerge early in life, early interventions are key. We all know that from the 'A Fair Start' report. School segregation is a second critical dimension of education inequality. Education systems with more school segregation reduce the opportunities for pupils from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Priority education policies, such as Ireland's DEIS programme, take various forms across Europe. Overall, they have positive effects, even if they require considerable investment.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you for your presentation. I will get straight to my questions, as time is against us. Your paper highlights — we covered this in the last session — that academic selection could have an impact on educational outcomes and on that intergenerational education and earnings mobility that you referenced.

Will you expand on why you have made that link and on the potential linkages between academic selection and educational mobility?

Dr Devlin: Paul talked about the more holistic nature of it. One thing that came up in our report, very clearly, when we were talking to stakeholders from the North — this is very much a growing problem — was the increase in special educational needs and how that provision is mixing with academic selection, in that it is, for the largest part, being funnelled into secondary schools. You know all about the funding shortfalls for secondary schools and the issues that they are facing. The increase in special educational needs is, perhaps, increasing the challenges for schools. Teachers are saying that they are dealing with too much — we know that — that the secondary schools, in particular, are dealing with socio-economic disadvantage and that that is compounded by SEN.

Obviously, we know that affluence had an impact on academic selection at age 10 or 11 — I still want to call it the 11-plus, which shows my age; in fact, it had an impact even when it was the 11-plus. Now that we have moved away from that system and it is dependent upon the schools, which are not supposed to be preparing for it but perhaps are — it is not my place to comment — children and families are dependent on private tuition. We have seen what the grinds system is doing in Ireland: it is exacerbating social inequalities. It is highly likely that that is the case here. It is very hard to do research on this, but we might be able to do robust research on it using the longitudinal dataset next year. It will be interesting to see. Selina might want to come in on her work on the various types of selection in Ireland.

Professor Selina McCoy (Economic and Social Research Institute): Those were very good points, Anne. It is, in a way, a more complex picture, in that we had a lot of subtle selection processes going on in Ireland for a long time, particularly in the area of special educational needs. Schools were saying that they did not have the supports and systems in place to meet certain types of need, and, by consequence, they were turning people away. That appears to have declined in recent years with the Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 and all of the recent legislation, but subtle practices are probably still going on. That is certainly the case.

Anne mentioned that the DEIS profile varies enormously. For example, students with special educational needs range from 8% in one DEIS school to 40% in another. That was in a study of seven schools. Some schools, by virtue of being effective and inclusive in their methodologies, approaches and climates, attract a large number of students with diverse additional needs — sometimes, complex needs. By virtue of that, they end up having a population of students presenting with very complex needs, and, to be fair, they do not receive the proportionate resource to meet those needs. There are a lot of issues around how resources are targeted at schools and meeting complex needs in Ireland — hopefully, we will come to that. The DEIS school programme is the critical programme, and there are issues around the effectiveness of that programme in meeting complex needs. I could keep talking, but we might come back to how the programme is targeting, the couple of gaps and the need for better indicators and a more responsive and dynamic approach. I will not talk too much about it now, but —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We may come back to that. I have one final question on the selection issue and a brief one on how we target resources. Did your research suggest that looking at academic selection is something that the Department should be doing as we look to tackle educational underachievement? We went down quite a political route last time, but the Committee is trying to understand what the appropriate interventions are. Has your research shown that that is a potential area for attention?

Dr Devlin: We are not saying that, but the Northern Ireland stakeholders whom we spoke to — the teachers and principals from a range of backgrounds across the North — very much felt that it was not helpful. Professor Tony Gallagher is one of the experts in that area in the world, not just here, and has done lots of research in the area.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is helpful.

I will ask a question, and I am looking for just a brief answer, because I know that other members are keen to come in. Investment from the Department and the Shared Island Fund has been funnelled into the RAISE programme here. Our understanding of that programme, at the moment, is that it looks at different place-based interventions and, largely, at having pilots, trials and testing to find out what works well. With DEIS, you have a model of very targeted investment into specific schools to try to tackle educational underachievement. If there were a pot of money to be invested, would you suggest, from your research, that piloting and trialling different approaches is a helpful intervention, or would you suggest getting money into schools for specific interventions such as those that we have seen in DEIS schools? Which of those approaches is more likely to be effective? I am happy to think in the longer term, if the pilots deliver information that could inform future practice.

Dr Devlin: I will briefly give my opinion. The stakeholders in the North talked much more positively about DEIS than some of those in the South did. Obviously, those in the South are in the midst of that programme, and a lot of them said that they wanted more resources and more schools to be involved. A lot of people across the North spoke about the DEIS programme with envy. It is interesting to see the move that there has been with the RAISE programme. There have been a lot of reports about socio-economic disadvantage. The 'A Fair Start' report was brilliant, and it was very important, but that was not the first time that we learned this; there have been reports over a considerable period. I am of the opinion that we need to get moving. We do not have huge financial resources here, and the Government — the Executive — could change. Consistency is important, and getting money in is important. Selina may wish to add to that briefly.

Professor McCoy: I will say this briefly. The evidence on DEIS is fantastic. I contest Paul — Professor Downes — a little on this matter. We did a study last year, which was a deep dive into 21 schools. That included seven DEIS schools, seven socio-economically mixed schools and some fee-charging schools. The DEIS students came out very strongly across a range of dimensions, including on things such as emphasis on literacy and reading; opportunities to engage in extracurricular activities such as sports, particularly for girls, who tend to be much less likely to participate in sports; students' role in decision-making and democracy in school; the school climate; and the positivity with which they relate to their teachers.

All those things were really strong for students in DEIS schools. The DEIS programme is definitely having a profound impact, and the evidence is strong that DEIS schools are definitely doing a lot to make school a place that students want to attend. Students with all sorts of disadvantage want to attend for all those reasons: extracurricular activities, teaching and learning methodologies, the voice that they have in school, how they are treated by their teachers and all those things. I wanted to get that on the record first, because there is a lot of good evidence that I do not think we should throw out.

The DEIS programme is really good. There is room for improvement, however; there always is. I will highlight two things about where we need to go with the DEIS programme. The most important one is probably the DEIS plus issue. The schools with the most complex needs that are in very deprived areas— typically inner-city areas — definitely need more support. Paul talked well about schools reporting severe cases of intergenerational poverty, trauma linked to care, homelessness, mental health issues, substance abuse and the profound impact of all of those issues. Schools are struggling to meet all those needs effectively while also meeting all the learning needs of their student body. There is definitely a very strong argument for DEIS plus: a subcategory of schools that receives much more intensive resources and more of the wrap-around specialised support that Paul talked about in the Committee's previous evidence session. I would include in that social care workers, speech and language therapy and psychology.

The home-school liaison scheme has been fantastic, so there should be more of that, for sure. Home-school liaison has been instrumental in making connections between schools and parents and in creating parents' involvement and interest in and ownership of their child's learning. It has been instrumental in supporting those families with their parenting skills and providing wider service support related to health and everything else. That connection piece is important.
There is room for improvement.

The other issue with DEIS is that there are very hard cut-offs. At secondary level, a school is either in or out — it is a binary system. Lots of schools have enrolments that change very quickly, but the system does not respond very quickly. It is based largely on census data, which is gathered every five years, and, of course, a school's profile can change dramatically in two or three years. If we can create a more responsive and dynamic identification of schools, the DEIS programme can be fantastic. I hope that I am not unique in Ireland in thinking that. There is a lot of research to show that there have been a lot of positive effects. It is a good programme.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): That is really helpful. Is it possible for you to share that information with the Committee so that we can look at that outside of the meeting space — the history of the DEIS programme and the research that has been done to assess its impact and effectiveness? That would be really helpful for members to see.

Mr Sheehan: Thank you, Anne and Selina, for your presentation. I want to go back to the RAISE programme. The funding for that programme, of some €24 million, came from the Shared Island Fund. Unusually, the Minister has devised a very complex and convoluted way of allocating that funding and has not given any extra weight to poverty and socio-economic deprivation.

We have heard a lot today — Selina mentioned it, and Paul mentioned it in the previous session — about other factors that may be involved in educational underachievement and early school leaving. From what I have learned in my role on this Committee, however, socio-economic deprivation is still the best predictor of a child's educational outcome. Would that be true?

Dr Devlin: Yes, that would be true. We know that there are gender and religious differences, but it is very clear — there are numerous tables in the 'A Fair Start' report — that socio-economic difference is the main driver of those outcomes. You can measure that in many ways, but it is fairly consistent and is found in lots of places.

Mr Sheehan: If, when the DEIS programme was being established, an Education Minister in the South had said, "We don't want all or most of the funding going into inner cities" — where most of the deprivation is — "we want to spread it out geographically", would that have made sense to you?

Dr Devlin: Thankfully, I did my homework on this Committee. [Laughter.]

Mr Martin: That was very wise, Anne.

Dr Devlin: I was not expecting all the questions on academic selection. Do you know what? When the RAISE programme was first announced — I will say this very honestly because it is the only way I know how to do things — I heard about it on the radio in the car. I thought that it was brilliant, following our 2022 report. It was great to hear, because it was exactly why I went to work in the institute. I wanted to work on policy-relevant issues. I went home to look it up: to see what the craic was with RAISE and what was going on.

One of the first things that I came across was the list of schools, which I was immediately shocked by. I could not understand it. I went to a grammar school in Ballymena, which I will not name, given the backlash that followed the publication of the list of schools. I was surprised that it was quite near the top of the list. I do not know what has happened since. There has been a bit more clarity on the way in which RAISE areas have been formulated, rather than on particular schools.

I know that there has been a movement away from using free school meals as a determinant. To be honest, there are probably pros and cons to that. You have talked about that loads here before. That is not news to anybody. Free school meals is a very crude measure of deprivation, but it is annual, and it does the job. The Minister has seven or so criteria, which, I imagine, if you looked at the data, are probably all very heavily correlated with free school meals.

My concerns around some of those criteria centre on the likes of GCSE attainment. As Selina said, one of the issues with DEIS is that it is being done every five years and is based on the census. If you are waiting for children to go the full way through to year 12, you are then waiting for the GCSE results to come out and the data to come out a year later before you make a pivot to RAISE. My questions would be about that time lag, given that we know about the importance of early interventions. When it comes to the criteria and the method that is arrived at, there is probably a lot of correlation with those metrics when you look at the data.

It is unclear from the methodology and so forth online how the regional spread is done. Do you pull Belfast and Derry out and then take the other areas next, or is it done on a local government district (LGD) basis? Looking at it, I was not entirely sure, so I will not comment on that. I went to school in Ballymena and now live in east Tyrone, and I know that there are personal and political decisions to be made as to where funding goes.

We do not have a magic money tree. I would support it being spread across the North, especially given the economy. We talk a lot now about regional balancing and looking west of the Bann.

Mr Sheehan: Fair enough. I suppose —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I think that Selina wants to come in.

Dr McCoy: An excellent answer, Anne. Fantastic. That is a topic of scrutiny at the moment in Ireland. I signed a contract with the Department of Education just this week to develop a monitoring and evaluation framework particularly around DEIS. The objective of that research programme over the next 12 months will be to get a more responsive and effective identification of need within and across schools. How is socio-economic disadvantage best measured? What variables do we need? Which sources of data do we need? Can we use existing data? Is that enough? Can we improve existing data sources such as the post-primary pupil database, or do we need additional data sources to best measure need, and socio-economic deprivation in particular? That is all with a view to shaping resource allocation, the effectiveness of that allocation, and an ongoing refinement of measurement capturing evolving school need. In every jurisdiction, schools' needs evolve very quickly in some cases, so it needs to be a dynamic, responsive system. That is something that I will be working on over the next 12 months. I am just flagging it because it could be very relevant to your deliberations.

Mr Sheehan: Thanks for that, Selina. Just to come back to the area-based way in which this funding is being allocated, everyone would like to see funding as widespread as possible, but in my view it has to be based on objective need, and, as things stand, the most acute objective need is probably in the inner cities of Belfast and Derry.

I will leave it there. I want to move on, since you are an economist, Anne.

Ms Devlin: If I may just briefly say one wee thing. Urban and rural deprivation are very different, and maybe we are not always great at getting at rural deprivation. I do not disagree by any means that it is in inner city areas, but there is a lot of deprivation in rural areas, occasionally very spread out. It is something worth thinking about but there is no magic data or even economist way of sorting that.

Mr Sheehan: Absolutely, Anne. I agree with that.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It needs to be a very brief final question, and a very brief answer.

Mr Sheehan: You are an economist, I think you said. Here in the North, the Department of Education receives 19·4% of the overall Budget, and by the time monitoring rounds are handed out, that probably brings it close to 20%. How does that compare with budgetary allocations and educational outcomes in other jurisdictions?

Ms Devlin: I am very happy to follow up on that. Maybe Selina will know offhand. From when we did the report, I think that per capita spend is lower here. I am happy to follow up on that with some figures. I do not know them all off the top of my head.

Mr Sheehan: I see you shaking your head. [Laughter.]

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): If you could follow up, that would be great.

Mrs Mason: I apologies for not being there to ask you this in person. We hear time and again about early intervention, especially around special educational needs, but also around educational outcomes. You will be well over the detail and know that we do have difficulty in the North with the statementing process. We are waiting on the childcare — but, specifically, early learning — strategy here. What provisions should be in that strategy to make sure that every child gets the very best start on their educational journey and maybe has better outcomes towards the end?

Dr McCoy: I have not done a huge amount of work on early years. Most of my work is at primary and second level. Colleagues from the ESRI have, and we could send on some papers on that. Fran McGinnity and Helen Russell in particular have done a lot on early years and the value of particular interventions and their effectiveness on long-term outcomes. We will happily share that.

Mrs Mason: That is great. The other area that I want to ask about is Irish-medium education and, in particular, the assessment. We know that many Irish-medium schools are placed in areas of disadvantage. Given the discussion that we are having today, it is fully recognised that the nature and aim of any assessment requires careful consideration in both jurisdictions. I am mindful of the growth that we see in Irish-medium education, across the island but specifically here. It is probably over 50 years since we saw the first Irish-medium school here, and the sector is still lobbying across the board about not having appropriate access to assessment tools to determine pupil attainment. Have you a view on that?

Dr McCoy: Anne, I do not know whether you want to come in here. It is not something that we have looked at in the institute, and it is not something that has received enough attention in Ireland either. There has been some proliferation of Irish-medium schools, but not at the same rate as in Northern Ireland, as far as I know. I think it is at a much lower rate. Some of the critical issues there are around teaching and learning resources, books and all that. As to assessment, I do not know. I think that there are issues, but it is not something that we have done any research on or that has received much attention, to be honest, in the Irish context — as far as I know, anyway.

Ms Devlin: I agree with that. As you said, it is interesting, given the growth and the relationship with deprivation. More on an anecdotal note, where there are communities around those schools, it is very ad hoc and based on individuals. That seems to be how a lot of that education sector is driven, by people who feel very strongly about it. At the likes of An Carn in Maghera, there is obviously a school and a shop, with a big community and resources. They have several books out now, which they sell in the shop because they just were not available. However, it is all ad hoc and people-based.

Dr McCoy: Sorry, there was one piece of work we did, back in 2004, so it is quite dated. It was looking at who went to college — I think 'Who went to college in 2004?' was the title of it. We looked at how that varied among school-leavers from all different sectors in the system and their rates of progression into higher education. Actually, they were really high for Irish-medium schools. They were on a par with the fee-charging sector. They appeared to be very selective in their intake, and very much middle-class settings, at that time at least. Now, with the growth in provision, that may have changed. However, they seemed to be more at the middle-class end than the deprived end. That was the evidence at that time. That is the only research I have on that.

Mrs Mason: That was in the South?

Dr McCoy: Yes.

Mrs Mason: OK.

Ms Devlin: Next year we will maybe facilitate research into specific sectors a bit better and the long-term pathways for the pupils going through them.

Mrs Mason: That would be great. Like I say, it is something that is brought up time and again: the struggle of the Irish-medium sector for resources and assessments. Teachers are having to translate from English to Irish to mark assessments and things like that. It just does not work. Anne, you hit the nail on the head: it is the sector that is doing the heavy lifting and making the growth. It is because of them that it is as successful as it is. Despite the Department having a statutory duty to support the sector, that does not seem to be the case. Thanks for that. I would appreciate that research on the early years as well. It would be really interesting.

Dr McCoy: No problem.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much for being here today and for your briefing. We talk a lot at the Committee about the delays in getting assessments for ADHD and autism in our young people. This ties in with socio-economic factors: middle-class parents will be able to afford to get a private diagnosis while other children are forced to wait in the queue, and it can take years. It is a huge barrier to accessing education. Is there anything the South is doing that we should be looking at here to ensure that children who are awaiting a diagnosis get the proper adequate support and the best educational outcomes possible?

Ms Devlin: It is definitely a big problem here. Selina, I do not know whether you have worked on that?

Dr McCoy: Yes, I have. Probably the biggest issues in the South at the moment are accessing specialised supports and assessments. They are the two critical issues, and there is constant lobbying going on from advocacy and parent groups trying to support their children. I do not think that it has improved enormously over the last few years. It was exacerbated in the context of the pandemic. We had this brilliant vision that we would have a school inclusion model. I do not know if you have heard about it, but a school inclusion model was planned to start just as the pandemic broke. The idea was that there would be specialised support within the school context — for example, speech and language, psychological support, occupational therapy and a whole suite of support, and far more in the way of the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and the assessments that they provide. They would be wrap around and would support, ultimately, a move towards full inclusion. By full inclusion, I mean everybody attending a mainstream school. Nursing support would also have been brought into mainstream schools.

When the pandemic broke, none of that became realistic. Recruiting any of those people to work in schools became impossible, and the programme broke down. We had been commissioned to do a pre-post-analysis impact study, which obviously never happened. The model that was being designed was very promising, in the sense that you bring all of those wraparound supports into a mainstream school context, and then you reduce the need for students to go to specialised segregated settings. It has happened in a few countries quite successfully, but there are challenges. It is a really complex thing to do and requires massive resources, to be fair. That is one model of providing those specialised supports in a mainstream context.

Since then, and over the past 10 years, we have probably moved towards more segregation than inclusion. I did a study 10 years ago to look at how students in special class settings within mainstream schools faired. The study was longitudinal. We looked at different types of class settings for different types of need — physical need, learning need and so on. The study was actually quite disappointing in the sense that it showed that they operated as a form of segregation. The students tended to go into the settings at the start of primary or second-level education and stay there. There was not the movement or the fluidity that had been envisaged in policy documents around it. They stay together as a group, and 60% of those special classes, at second level, were taught by one teacher for all their subject areas, which is quite astounding. Their capacity to progress was seriously impeded but, more importantly, their interaction with their peers was very much impeded. They operate as a form of segregation.

We did a full census of all schools as part of the study. It was a massive study and was quite damning around special class provision. There has been a massive proliferation in special class provision since then. There have been 1,700 new special classes in the last couple of years alone. That is the policy response in Ireland to meeting the specialised and particularly more complex needs in a mainstream context, but I am not convinced that it is the best one. I do not know what the situation is in Northern Ireland — if there are special classes and how they operate. I should have looked into Northern Ireland at the time.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): It is a very similar picture.

Dr McCoy: OK. I have a lot of concerns about this policy direction, particularly in relation to autism classes. A lot of the new classes are designated specifically for autism. The incidence of autism in Ireland — and, I think, in Northern Ireland as well — has risen from 1·5% to 5% in the space of a few years. We need to do a lot more to look into how to meet the needs of those students in an inclusive way, and I am not sure that the special class model solves all the problems there.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much for such a detailed answer.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Time is going to beat us here, unfortunately, Cara.

Ms Hunter: Yes. In the interest of time, I have two questions, but I will wrap them into one. Reading up on the low parental education and the impact that it has on the child, often resulting in lower education for the child, what can we learn from the South on this matter? In the previous session, we talked about physical disability being a barrier to education. Is that something that you are seeing in school settings in the South?

Ms Devlin: Disability in particular is something that some of the education team have been working on more recently. With regard to parental education, the reason that that link has been broken — or at least lessened — comes down to the things that we have talked about, such as academic selection remaining here and the DEIS programme. At the end of the day, parental education correlates very highly with deprivation and socio-economic disadvantage. If the mother has a degree, there are more likely to be books in the home and how they view the value of the sorts of things we talked about and how that impacts on the child.

Selina might speak more specifically about the disability.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Time is against us, so I ask for a brief answer.

Professor McCoy: The 'Growing Up in Ireland' study has been fantastic in unpacking how early educational and home learning environments impact on a range of later educational outcomes. It has been fantastic in understanding the processes at play and how best to address those. It is about the likes of the home-school community liaison officer; bringing parents into the school context and engaging with them; providing home learning environments, resources, including books, and library access. It is about all of those sorts of things. There are critical issues early on in the educational process, and, if we address them, children's life chances are improved enormously.

Dr Devlin: Very briefly, mothers with higher levels of educational attainment are more likely to be in the labour force There is a relationship between your grandparents looking after you and your doing better in school and between your parents working and your doing better is school. Those are the types of things that have an impact.

Ms Hunter: Thank you so much.

Mr Brooks: First, I want to get something out of the way. This has been said in the Committee before — you referred to it too: publishing the list of schools in the RAISE project was unhelpful. Pat may have found it useful in some ways, but, generally, we can say that its being published was not conducive or helpful to the programme. Departmental officials sat before us and agreed with that.

Mr Sheehan: The Department must have been confused when it put it out.

Mr Brooks: It should not have gone out. I am happy to say that. It was misleading. While I am a defender of academic selection, grammar schools and the work that they do, I have sympathy with the idea that schools doing the heavy lifting need to be resourced appropriately for that. I see that in the secondary schools that do it in my area. Some of the issues that they are facing — at least, the scale of them — have arrived fairly recently: the waves of new communities; and the rise in SEN pupils, without having had the data from Health and so on. I think that everyone recognises that it is a challenge that we all now face in an imperfect situation, and funding needs to recognise that going forward.

I go back to the discussion that you had around RAISE. The answer to this question is probably that there is not a perfect way. As Danny will know, I was a representative for Lisnasharragh district electoral area (DEA) in Belfast City Council. I was constantly frustrated by the neighbourhood renewal areas, because there were areas in my constituency that fell outside those, and I felt that were being punished because of the relative affluence around them. You have talked about that being a rural issue as well. I can think of an area and community association in east Belfast — on the Beersbridge Road — that I do not think anyone would argue is not an area that needs support in that way. It falls metres outside the neighbourhood renewal area and constantly loses out on funding because of that. Is there any way in which we could improve the model for not just education but across the board to make sure that those pockets of deprivation across the country are recognised and that the people who live in those areas, who are not financially well off or affluent, are not punished because of the relative affluence of those around them?

Dr Devlin: That is a very interesting question. Work has been done. I hope that I remember this right: Belfast and the North more broadly are unique, in that, in other places, deprivation and where you live work on a spectrum: the more affluent areas are further from the more deprived areas, and you can almost see that as you move between them. Some sort of economic history paper said that, in the North, due to the way in which industry was, some of the most deprived areas neighbour some of the most affluent areas, and that can cause problems. Super-output areas are quite small. I do not think that there is a perfect way of doing it, bar starting to look at the likes of households and so on. However, given the data and dynamics, that is not feasible, for a lot of reasons. It is very much another Northern Ireland-specific problem, so it is not a case of being able to look to other countries to see what happens there, because they do not have that happen in the same way.

Mr Brooks: I appreciate that. I probably did not expect an answer to that. To be honest, that is why I probably welcome the fact that, sometimes, there is a different approach to different programmes. If all programmes use the same criteria, they constantly hit the same people, and the people who are left out get left out all of the time. There is some logic in that. Obviously, I disagree on academic selection — we can do that all day — but we may be able to agree that the dominance of that discussion hides a wealth of sins, in that, rather than focusing on the totemic political issues, we might be able to agree on and deal with some of the underlying issues. That is more of a comment than a question. Thank you for your answers. I appreciate them.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Peter, I have you down as the last member wishing to ask a question. I do not see any others indicating. Given the time, I will take that as the last indication.

Mr Martin: Outstanding, Chair.

Thank you so much for your attendance and evidence today. I have quoted ESRI on several occasions, probably including at this Committee. Your research is really good, and I have really enjoyed reading through some of your reports.

I will start with early educational development and its relationship with social class. That was part of your evidence. A study by, I think, the state of Victoria found that, if you read to children from birth to age 4, by the time that they get to P1, they will have the cognitive ability of P2 children. That is the impact of reading every day. Do you accept that the battle is not about having a book? Having a book is not particularly challenging: reading material and books, even for kids, are cheap these days. As far as I am aware, the Department of Education supports BookTrust so that all newborns in Northern Ireland get books. Do you accept that the battle in this area is more about getting parents to read to children? It is not a social class barrier in economic terms. That one intervention clearly demonstrates that children can massively excel in school if they are read to every day, and the barrier to reading to them every day is not necessarily an economic one. Do you accept that? You may be getting ready to shake your head. Do you want to come back to me on that? I am interested in your thoughts.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Selina is looking to come in.

Mr Martin: OK, sorry. It is difficult to see the screens.

Dr Devlin: Selina is probably the expert, but I will say what I know. I agree and disagree. We know what is happening with poverty. We know what is happening here: people are struggling. You might have all the books in the world sitting in the corner. One of my sisters has three children, and one has four: getting home from work, making the dinner, doing bath time and trying to start reading is difficult.

Mr Martin: It sounds as though you live in our house. We have similar problems.

Dr Devlin: There may be more nuances attached to the economics of it. I try not to be a scary economist who says that you should just do this or that. There is a study that says that even the number of books that a child reads has an impact on them. Maybe the parents who read buy more books, but it is very nuanced. Selina has the expertise in the area.

Professor McCoy: You are spot on, Anne. Access to books is important, as is the number of books. Time and again, in every study that we do, we find that the number of books at home predicts all sorts of things — internationally. It is important. Library access — some countries do library access and community access to libraries well — is another big area. The role of preschools and primary schools is to make parents aware of those links and of the importance of spending time reading with their child. There is an awareness piece, for sure, and preschools in particular have an important role. Primary schools are important as well.

The study that we cited at the beginning of Anne's presentation showed that boys do not read nearly as much as girls. There is a big gender issue that we definitely have to grapple with. That is an aside; it is not a socio-economic issue, although it is disadvantaged boys in particular who are not reading.

We cannot ignore screen time and technology, which also impact on engagement in reading for pleasure. We know, from 'Growing up in Ireland', in which we compared two cohorts, one born in 1998 and the other born in 2008, that the incidence of reading for leisure all through primary school has declined dramatically over time. Part of that is to do with screen time and all the activities around technology and mobile phones, but it is also to do with a shift away from reading for pleasure. We really need to grapple with that. It is an issue right across Europe. That is all that I will say on that.

Mr Martin: Thank you.

I will come back to RAISE. I have the indicators. Anne, you have done some work on this. It would be a shame, given that you have done all that work, if we did not ask you a couple of questions on it.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): I will ask for one question, Peter. Time is —.

Mr Martin: Chair, I want my five minutes here.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): You will have them.

Mr Martin: You have me on a stopwatch. I will have a stopwatch on everyone in this Committee. I will record the times.

For example, do you accept that, in terms of a child-centred approach, indicators such as free school meals entitlement (FSME), incorporated with income deprivation measures, health deprivation measures and GCSEs —. You made a case for what the problem with that is, but surely, if we are going to target outside the traditional areas, having multiple factors that better target those children, wherever they live and whatever school they go to —. It is the child who you are trying to support with RAISE. Having multiple measures in place to target the funding is surely better than having one measure, free school meals, which you accepted — we probably would all accept — is a bit blunt for measuring where funding should be targeted. Do you accept that, Anne?

Ms Devlin: I would need more information. Free school meals data is taken every year, and it can change quite a bit. To me, that is the benefit of it. Speaking as a researcher, if data and things stayed the same, our lives would honestly be significantly easier. That is my concern. I do not think that it is a terrible idea. As you said, people may be left out by other measures. If other interventions are targeted towards you, and then they —. I just wonder why there is a change. Free school meals is there, it is taken every year, it is comparable and consistent. If that sort of data is available —. All those things — health, income and disability — will correlate. If you look at the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure (NIMDM) and throw out access to services, it is entirely correlated across the board. That is my take on it.

Mr Martin: If you were to use FSME, and if the FSME data said, "Just put it all in x and y", with x and y being two what I will call place-based areas such as maybe two large population centres, would that be a good use of the available money, or do you accept that there are other, smaller pockets? You mentioned super-output areas, and we know about the NISRA facts, but do you accept that there are other, smaller areas of deprivation and need in Northern Ireland that sometimes do not get the same funding as, perhaps, areas x and y do?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Some of that was covered in responses to the Deputy Chair's questioning, so please give a very brief response, and then we will close that.

Ms Devlin: I covered a lot of that when I answered Pat's questions. I think that x and y are probably Belfast and Derry.

Mr Martin: I could not possibly comment.

Ms Devlin: As I said, all those measures correlate. They probably do not get at rural deprivation very well. If we are interested in regional balance, on which Economy is doing a lot of work, that is something to consider. Mid Ulster is the second most productive government district in the North. Despite coming from there, I did not know that until years into my PhD. There is a need to have a spread, because there is a lot of deprivation across the country, including in rural areas. However, where that money is put is a political decision, and it is not for us to comment on that.

Dr McCoy: I will briefly add to that. As you know, the DEIS measure is multidimensional. The Haase and Pratschke (HP) index includes 10 indicators: it is very rich and complex. When the OECD did its review of DEIS, it said that it was not sufficiently complex, identifying the fact that there were no measures relating to immigrant or ethnic minority background and insufficient measures relating to mental health difficulties in a school context. It argued for the need to have more nuance in the measurement of difficulty and need in schools. I am just throwing that in there.

Mr Martin: That is very useful. Thank you, Selina.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you very much. That is great. The Committee's level of interest in all of those issues is clear. I apologise if we were not able to get around everybody today, given the time. Thank you both for your time and your presentation today and for going through all of the questions. Thank you for doing your homework as well. [Laughter.]

Ms Devlin: Thank you. I am happy to follow up on anything else. If anything comes up down the line, reach out to us or some of the other researchers at the institute.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): There were a couple of things with regard to some follow-up material. If you are able to share those with the Committee, that will be great. Thank you very much.

Ms Devlin: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): While Dr Devlin makes her way out, we will close that section off. From my perspective, there were two or three bits of research material which I think there was an undertaking to share, so unless anybody else wants to highlight anything else —.

Mr Martin: From that one?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Yes.

Mr Martin: If the provision of the nuance around DEIS stats could be shared with the Committee, that would be helpful. I did not realise that it was quite so nuanced, with 10 items, so can we get information on how DEIS is allocated and information on the measures?

Ms Devlin: Personally, I would say that the HP — are we in closed session?

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We are still in open session.

Ms Devlin: I do not think that the HP deprivation index is as good as the Northern Ireland multiple deprivation measure. A lot more goes into the measure in the North to come to one figure, which is essentially what the deprivation index does. We work with it quite a bit, so I am happy to send over information on it.

Mr Martin: I am wondering, because Selina said, in terms —.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We do not have time today, but if we can get follow-up material on that, we can pick it up at an appropriate point.

Mr Martin: That is fine.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): We really are beaten on time, unfortunately.

Ms Devlin: There is very little on health and stuff in the measure in the South.

The Chairperson (Mr Mathison): Thank you very much.