The DEIS Grant: Additional Funding or Keeping up with the Joneses? An Analysis of DEIS School Funding in the Context of Voluntary Contributions.

Abstract

The Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools (DEIS) programme provides targeted supports to schools serving disadvantaged communities, including an additional financial allocation known as the DEIS grant. The rationale behind this grant is that additional resources are necessary for schools in disadvantaged communities to achieve similar outcomes to their non-DEIS counterparts. This research examines the degree to which this grant does in fact represent additional resources for DEIS schools, when we account for the family donations requested by schools to supplement their income, commonly referred to as voluntary contributions. Taking post-primary schools in South Dublin as a case study, this research presents a digital documentary analysis of publicly available data, finding that non-DEIS schools have a significantly greater capacity to raise funds through voluntary contributions when compared to schools with DEIS status, even controlling for payment rates. This phenomenon is compounded by state tax relief offered to schools with the highest voluntary contributions, which this research has shown are more likely to have non-DEIS status. The study concludes that the DEIS grant can more accurately be considered a policy tool which seeks to mitigate the significant financial resources available to non-DEIS schools, rather than one which puts DEIS schools ahead financially.