Two rural schools qualify for urban support programme

Two rural primary schools have been selected to receive the highest level of disadvantage supports reserved only for urban schools in a new Government plan.

The Co Donegal schools are on a list of 79 primary and second-level schools which Education Minister Richard Bruton said on Monday are being included in his department’s educational disadvantage programme.

The expansion of Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) is based on additional sources of data to those used in 2006 when more than 800 schools were first identified for extra funding and access to a range of supports. Only those schools with the highest concentrations of disadvantage have been added for now, after comparing individual address data for pupils at each school in the country with a deprivation index using Census 2011 information.