A huge improvement - that's how Liam Lally, principal of Scoil Eoin in Kilbarrack, Co Dublin describes the recently-launched £26 million initiative to tackle educational disadvantage in primary schools. As a result of the new measure, Lally's school, which has an enrolment of 270, will gain two extra teachers and an extra £7,000. Until now, the Kilbarrack school has not been designated disadvantaged. "It was an anomaly and it was unclear to us why we didn't merit the designation," Lally says. Thanks to objective criteria established by the Educational Research Centre (ERC), St Patrick's College, Dublin, the school now qualifies as disadvantaged. "Over 90 per cent of our pupils satisfy the criteria," Lally says. Under the scheme, the Department of Education and Science is inviting some 2,276 schools to apply to participate in the programme. With support, each school will come up with its own plan to tackle educational disadvantage.

According to the Minister for Education and Science, Dr Michael Woods, the scheme will ensure that educationally disadvantaged pupils in schools that are socio-economically mixed benefit from the new programme. Schools that already have disadvantaged status and schools in the Breaking the Cycle scheme will continue to receive the extra supports currently available and many will now receive additional resources. The minimum amount allocated to qualifying schools is £750. However, 76 of the schools will receive £10,000. Some 204 new teaching posts will be created. Pupil-teacher ratios in urban schools will be reduced to 20:1 in the case of junior classes and 29:1 in senior classes.