Deputy Pat the Cope Gallagher has received confirmation following a Dáil question reply that the Department of Education has no appeals process for unsuccessful schools who participated in the recent round of DEIS school applications.
In the Department’s reply to the question it clearly states “a verification process is provided for schools wishing to seek information used to assess the level of disadvantage of it pupil cohort, but no further schools will be added to the DEIS plan”.
Pat the Cope stated it is important that this matter is clarified as “some public representatives were leading schools and parents to believe that there was an appeals mechanism and creating an expectation whereby schools could be added to the current DEIS plan.”
He added that this is clearly inaccurate and wrong.
“The recent designations and omissions of schools by the Minister of Education and the Government are a fait accompli – the schools which were omitted and left out will be left high and dry until such time as another DEIS designation scheme is announced.
“It is an increditable and unbelievable decision on the part of the Government to not allow for an appeals process, it denies unsuccessful schools the right of appeal or the right to submit additional information concerning their applications and it is contrary to previous occasions when DEIS designations were made by other Ministers in the past.
“It is particularly wrong when viewed in the context that a number of schools which were denied DEIS status have now observed errors in how their application was appraised and dealt with by the Department. The lack of an appeals process means those schools have no recourse other than to await a new scheme to be announced by the Government.
“It is inconceivable that current scheme be permitted to remain in place, in many areas we have a situation whereby the neighbouring schools are in DEIS but another school next door has not received DEIS status. In such cases whereby adjacent schools have different DEIS status while it is evident that they come from the same socio economic backgrounds and circumstances – it is evident that the system of designation is flawed in the first instance.”
Pat the Cope added it is obvious this Government are not willing to listen to the milliard of schools omitted from DEIS and are directly negatively affected by the recent decision of this Government, it clear also that some Government representatives simply do not know what they are talking about when they refer to an appeals mechanism which does not exist.
“The Government have made a mess of DEIS designation for disadvantaged schools throughout Donegal – all that is being sought here is a level playing field and fairness for all schools. No school, no community nor any child should be left in disadvantage due to a direct decision of a Government and this Government has failed to treat all children equally when handling DEIS designation.
“I call on the Government to immediately provide an appeals mechanism and to allow schools which fulfil the criteria be designated as DEIS schools,” concluded Pat the Cope.
