An internal Department of Education report is sharply critical of the State's €300 million programme to combat educational disadvantage in primary and second-level schools.

A Department of Education report on disadvantage, prepared over a two-year period by senior officials, is highly critical of the State's efforts in this key area.

The report, seen by The Irish Times, is the most detailed assessment ever undertaken by the Department of its policies on educational disadvantage. The report concludes various schemes designed to combat the problem lack coherence and are poorly co-ordinated.

It also says there is no proper means of identifying and reviewing levels of disadvantage in schools.

According to the report, insufficient attention is also paid to any evaluation of the various schemes to combat disadvantage - and there is a lack of detailed research figures.

In a disturbing finding, it says there is "little evidence of any improvement in the average literacy standard of pupils in some disadvantaged schools. It reports how up to 30 per cent of students in poorer areas suffer from severe literacy problems.

The draft report proposes a new five-year Action Plan 2004-2009. Chief among its proposals is a plan to band each school according to its level of disadvantage. New criteria will be used, it says, to identify the schools and the pupils with the greatest needs.

The report says a new Education Priority Allowance could be introduced to help schools in poorer areas attract and retain teachers. Aside from additional payments, teachers in these areas would also be entitled to a sabbatical year.

Last night, the general secretary of the INTO, John Carr, said the Department's report has much to commend it. But he said the commitments made in the report must be supported by major increases in funding in the forthcoming Budget.

Senior officials in the Department have been working on the report since early last year. It was originally commissioned by the former education minister, Noel Dempsey, who had expressed concerns about the apparent lack of progress in combating disadvantage in schools.

The report says the authorities have not even been successful in identifying the schools with the greatest needs. "There is a lack of an objective, robust system for identifying, and regularly reviewing, levels of disadvantage in schools."

It highlights a series of other weaknesses including:

Insufficient attention paid to target-setting, measurement of progress and outcomes.

Insufficient co-ordination within some schemes and across various schemes

Inadequate early childhood opportunities for learning.

The reports says each school should have its own school support programme. The huge number of schemes designed to combat the problem should be "re-constituted" into these school programmes. These include, the School Completion Scheme, the Support Teacher Programme at primary level, the Giving Children an Even Break scheme, the Home/School/Community Liaison Scheme and the Disadvantaged Area Scheme for second-level schools.

The report says a new Directorate of Education should be established within the Department as current efforts are dispersed over a large number of sections in the organisation. The new inspectorate will be charged with the task of implementing the proposed action plan.

The various action plans for individual schools, it says, will need to "prioritise and set targets for literacy and numeracy" standards among students.

The Department points out that there is no "quick-fix" to a multi-faceted problem such as educational disadvantage. "While there is no doubt the Government has invested substantially. . . there is no doubt the results have been mixed," it says.

The report makes few clear commitments to new resources. However, it says more specialised assistance will be made available at primary level to help boost literacy levels.

It says additional teacher allocations will be made, based on the rate of disadvantage in both primary and second-level schools.

Last night, the INTO welcomed the new banding scheme - provided there will also be an in-built, independent appeal process.

Carr pointed to some shortcomings in the plan. "The plan lays huge stress on the need for planning and evaluation at school level but fails to recognise the burden faced by teaching principals who will be responsible.

"The INTO has called for the appointment of administrative principals in priority schools where there are four teachers or more. In overall terms the financial cost is not huge, amounting as it does to about fifty posts, but the difference such an intervention could make in terms of effectiveness is incalculable," he said.

Carr also said that the plan was short on specifics. "It fails to spell out the level of resourcing that schools can expect in terms of teachers or financial aid. And it ignores the fact that children in poorer areas progress at the same rate as their better-off peers but start from a much lower base at infant level thus reflecting the dearth of quality of pre-school facilities in less well-off communities."

Dealing with disadvantage: Where are we going wrong?

Lack of objective system of identifying and reviewing levels of disadvantage in school.

Insufficient attention paid to target-setting, measurement of progress and outcomes.

Insufficient evaluation of some measures.

Insufficient co-ordination within some schemes, across schemes and cross-sectorally.

Insufficient early childhood opportunities for learning.

Inadequate attention to educational disadvantage in pre-service and in-service teacher eduction.

Source: Educational Disadvantage; An Action Plan for Success. Department of Education draft.