€5m fund will help increase equality in schools

A significant number of extra schools will get more supports from September under the first major changes to Government efforts, in over a decade, to tackle educational disadvantage.

However, it remains unclear if schools whose social profile has improved might have their extra teachers and funding pared back to facilitate the extra investment.

No schools have been added to the School Support Programme (SSP) since 2009, three years after it was established as part of the Department of Education’s Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) initiative.