Schools and infrastructure

Under the Local Management of Schools (LMS) arrangements, the Board of Governors of every school receives a delegated budget to meet the on-going costs of running their school, enabling them to plan and use resources to maximum effect in accordance with their school’s needs and priorities.

Details of the School Enhancement Programme, projects to be advanced to planning, and the protocol for the School Enhancement Programme.

Area Planning

The consultation on School Uniform Policy ran from 20 June 2024 to 27 September 2024 and sought views on making it a legal requirement for schools to follow the Departmental guidance on school uniforms.

About the Department of Education

A record of the decisions taken by the Minister of Education to date on pre-school settings that have requested changes under the “Standardisation Programme” to deliver new or additional full-time (22.5 hours per week) funded pre-school education from September 2025 is provided in the tables below.

Department of Education Youth Work

The Department of Education (DE) invests circa £36m per annum in youth work to support and encourage children and young people to mature and reach their full potential as valued individuals and responsible citizens. Youth work is valued for its contribution to personal and social development and to encourage engagement or re-engagement in positive learning.

Department of Education Circulars

Information released in 2024

Register of Interests

The Department of Education hosted the TransformED School Leaders’ Conference on Thursday 8 May 2025 at the Crowne Plaza, Belfast.

The following statistical bulletins contain information on school meals for all grant-aided schools in Northern Ireland. These bulletins are usually published in April each year.

This page provides links to information released by the Department of Education in response to Freedom of Information and Environmental Information Regulations requests.

Copies of FOI requests for 2025 that have not already been published are available upon request to the FOI Team.

In February 2025, the Minister of Education, Paul Givan MLA, introduced the School Uniforms (Guidelines and Allowances) Bill to the Assembly, with the aim of making uniforms more affordable for families and to ensure that the cost of a uniform is never a barrier to a child applying to the school of their choice.

In May 2024 the Minister of Education set out his intention to standardise the Pre-school Education Programme (PSEP) to full-time (22.5 hours per week) for all children aged 3-4 as part of the development of an Executive Early Learning and Childcare Strategy, in line with the recommendations of the Fair Start Report (2021). The Department, in conjunction with the Education Authority (EA), is progressing a Pre-School Standardisation Programme (PSP) to effect this change over time.

The Costello working group formed to take account of the responses to the consultation on the Burns Report, including the diversity of views on academic selection, and provide advice on options for future arrangements for post-primary education.

A record of the decisions taken by the Minister of Education to date on pre-school settings that have requested changes under the “Standardisation Programme” to deliver new or additional full-time (22.5 hours per week) funded pre-school education from September 2026 or as possible thereafter.

A record of the decisions made in 2022 & 2023 on requests for change under the Amalgamation for Standardisation Pilot is provided in the table below.

A record of the decisions taken by the Minister of Education to date on pre-school settings that have requested changes under the “Standardisation Programme” to deliver new or additional full-time (22.5 hours per week) funded pre-school education from September 2025 (Cohort 1) and from September 2026 (Cohort 2), or as soon as possible thereafter is provided in the tables below.

Information Released in 2026