Weir welcomes further £4.83m Engage funding

Education Minister Peter Weir has announced a further £4.83m for the Engage Programme’s school funding allocation, bringing the overall funding to £16m.

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.”

Notes to editors: 

1. The Engage Programme school allocations (April 2021 to June 2021) can be found here: Engage Programme school allocations (April 2021 to June 2021) | Department of Education (education-ni.gov.uk)
2. Follow us on Twitter @Education_ni
3. Media enquiries to the Department of Education Press Office at Press.Office@education-ni.gov.uk.
4. The Executive Information Service operates an out-of-hours service For Media Enquiries Only between 1800hrs and 0800hrs Monday to Friday and at weekends and public holidays. The duty press officer can be contacted on 028 9037 8110.

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