Councillors call on Minister to scrap ‘Raise’ funding

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council’s (NMDDC) active and healthy communities committee this week voted down a recommendation to engage with the Department of Education (DE) on its new ‘Raise’ scheme.

Instead elected reps now want Minster Paul Givan (DUP) to “go back to the drawing board” to “target objective need” in Northern Ireland’s schools.

Bringing forward the original motion to replace ‘Raise’, Slieve Croob Sinn Fein councillor, Siobhan O’Hare stated: “The minister has decided to spread this programme geographically and has used a flawed formula to determine eligibility.”

The education scheme, partially funded by the Irish government’s Shared Island Fund, was launched in October to with its stated aims being “to raise achievement to reduce educational disadvantage”. However, major concerns were highlighted after a DE website identified almost 40 grammar schools as well as a prep school charging up to £5k a year as potentially eligible for Raise funding.

A correspondence letter to NMDDC from DE has now been provided to councillors in chambers suggesting further engagement on the “roll out” of raise.

Slieve Gullion Sinn Fein rep, Declan Murphy said: “No, this recommendation, we wouldn’t be satisfied with. If you look at the motion, it is not a case of getting a better understanding of how Raise is rolled out.

“What we are saying fairly clearly is that it is inadequate, it doesn’t meet the needs and there is evidence there that suggests it doesn’t.

“So, basically what we are asking for is for the Minister to more or less scrap the programme and go back to the drawing board. And come up with something that will meet the objective need as opposed to what he is proposing at the minute.”

He added: “Bottom line is, wealthy people can afford to pay a lot of money to have their children educated and that’s what they do. So they understand the more resources put in the better education the children will have.

“Whereas areas of deprivation will never have that opportunity and what we are saying is, those are the areas that need to be targeted so social need, a policy which has existed since Stormont got up and running and we wouldn’t want to see it changed.”

Rowallane DUP councillor, Jonathan Jackson added: “We recognise that Raise is one of the predictors for tackling educational underachievement, but it’s not the only one.

“It is our belief rather than just attach funding to areas where there is high uptake in the likes of free school meals or areas of economic deprivation, we should be more sophisticated on how we target that funding, which is obviously critical. We are just saying priority has to be the best way to reach those children who really need the help the most.”

A majority vote of nine to one (DUP) voted in favour of the new motion, stating: “To ask the Minister to scrap the Raise programme and to implement something that would target the objective need in areas of social deprivation.”