Mason Pours Cold Water On £20M Raise Programme

Cathyxa0Masonxa0MLA has criticised the Education Ministers “RAISE” Programme after fee-paying schools included

The political sparks were flying at Parliament Buildings earlier this week when Cathy Mason MLA launched a criticism of the Education Minister handling of a £20 million fund from the Shared Island Unit.

The South Down Sinn Féin MLA said: “When Minister Givan announced that £20 million was coming from the Shared Island Unit in the South to help tackle the issue of educational underachievement here, I welcomed it as a really positive development.

“However, RAISE, as the programme has been named, fails to hit the mark.

“For some reason, the Minister and his officials have constructed a bizarre and complicated formula for determining which schools will be eligible to participate in the programme and which schools won’t.

‘Why is it bizarre? Because while this scheme was intended to support the children who are most likely to under-achieve in education, the Minister and his officials have designed a scheme in which a prep school that charges fees of up to £5000 a year is included while schools here in South Down in what are considered deprived areas won’t receive any support under the Ministers programme.

‘Traditionally, free school meal entitlement would have been used as key evidence when making an intervention such as this but on this occasion, Minister Givan has decided to move away from that.

‘In a system with such limited finance, we must ensure we get bang for our buck and to do that, we need to target our resources where they are most needed.

“In this instance, that is simply not happening.

‘I am calling on the Minister to go back to the drawing board, scrap his bizarre eligibility formula and work with those of us who want to see a plan that really will address the issue of educational underachievement in the North.”