New Plans For Improved Education System

The Government will unveil a plan today to make the Irish education and training system the best in Europe in 10 years.

The Action Plan for Education will see targets set similar to the way the last Government tackled the jobs crisis. This plan will outline hundreds of actions in the area of education with a particular focus on disadvantage and skills. Similar to the action plan for jobs it will assign responsibility for implementation, be revised each year and there will be progress reports every three months. Tackling educational disadvantage will be a key feature of the plan and a new ambitious DEIS plan will also be published by end-of the year to pioneer new approaches for delivering results and bring DEIS schools to the national norm by 2026. A key target will be increasing by almost a third the proportion of students at risk of disadvantage who proceed to higher education. Minister Richard Bruton says the plan has been devised as education is pivotal to our ambitions as a nation.