Weir welcomes further £4.83m Engage funding

Date published: 20 April 2021

The additional funding, agreed by the Executive, will run for the rest of the academic year and has been distributed to 984 primary and post primary schools across Northern Ireland.

Welcoming the funding allocations the Minister said: “I launched the Engage programme in September 2020 to address the impact of Covid-19 on children’s learning.

“Since then, the programme has helped many pupils to engage with learning by enabling schools to provide child centred teaching support to those who most need it. This valuable support has been provided by qualified teachers to pupils identified by the school as being at an educational disadvantage and who will benefit from additional support.”

The Engage programme enables primary and post primary schools to provide additional teaching support for pupils, particularly for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Minister continued: “I am confident that this additional funding to allow this important programme to continue, will assist schools and pupils to reach their full potential as we emerge from the pandemic which has touched all our lives over the last year. I also intend to continue the Programme into the next academic year and will make a further announcement on this in the near future.”