If you ever wondered why the school at the centre of your family’s life still hasn’t seen a new carpet for years, or why there’s still a drip in the science lab, then perhaps this edition of ‘Education Matters’ can help explain it.

In simple terms, part of the problem has been the minefield of all the many sectors of education we have in this tiny devolved nation of ours, but like most things in life, it goes deeper.

To start the ball rolling, we have different pots for schools’ funding; three main ones to be precise.

These are the School Enhancement Programme, The Major Work Programme, and Fresh Start.

All of these have different priorities and address various aspects of policy. The School Enhancement Programme (SEP) is a programme that “targets investment to meet the immediate and pressing needs in schools, through smaller-scale works, where new-build major capital works are not deemed affordable or deliverable within the budget available”, as the Department of Education puts it, with “funding of between £500,000 and £4,000,000 available for projects”.

The SEP doesn’t include new-build ‘solutions’, as they say, these are dealt with separately as part of the Major Works Programme – in other words, they fund projects above £4 million.

This includes new campus and school buildings rather than classroom blocks and the like.

The third avenue for school building projects, Fresh Start, applies only to integrated schools, and projects under £500,000 are considered ‘minor works’.

Going back to the Hampton Court Education Maze, many sectors have to have their share of the pie and, as we know, civil servants are very fond of the word, ‘equitable’.

This means the voluntary grammars; primary and secondary controlled, CCMS, special, integrated and Irish medium schools and a handful of independents all have to have their construction appetites fulfilled.

Further Education and universities come from different pots, so we’ll leave them out for now.

To add a little twist to the recipe, a further factor is that schools have to actually apply for the funding, it doesn’t happen automatically.

For this to happen, they – or more usually their sectorial body – have to make the application on their behalf. If a school doesn’t go looking, it doesn’t appear; a sure way of taking the heat off the politicians.

So how is the funding decided? Once nominations are received from sectors, or in the case of voluntary grammars, from their governors, there are a few housekeeping questions but essentially schools have to be considered viable and sustainable, as defined by the current Ministerial Policy and Area Planning processes, AKA the ‘Bain’ recommendations.

This little insomnia-busting document tells us that almost three quarters of the empty desks in school are in the primary sector, but essentially, the eight recommendations include the crucial wording for us in that it formally says that “there is no demonstrable evidence that education attainment in small schools is better than their larger counterparts”.

This, of course, arguably paves the way for small ‘unsustainable’ schools to be forced to close or merge.

Once schools have jumped through these hoops, the applicants go through a “surveying and assessment and scoring of schools” round.

In real terms, this means schools must fit into the area plan, their accommodation must be sub-standard and they have a suitably high number of Level 5s on the Special Educational Needs register, the highest number, which means the most in need.

When all that is said and done, and a final score is produced, then the announcements are made.

In some ways the whole process is simple; in other ways, deceptively complex.

In the last 20 years or so, almost all post-primary schools in the wider area will have had some kind of funding to enhance their infrastructure and accommodation.

This includes work undertaken from both the School Enhancement and Major Works Programmes.

As reported earlier, in 2021, in ‘Education Matters’, the SEP (School Enhancement Programme) provided St. Kevin’s College and Erne Integrated with £4 million each; Willowbridge £3.9 million, and St. Micheal’s College and Mount Lourdes £1.4 and £1.1 million respectively.

From a different pot, the Major Capital Work Programme, new school campuses for Devenish College (£26.6 million) and ERGS (£17 million) have been allocated.

The spending hasn’t stopped there. St. Aidan’s High School in Derrylin has just announced that a new mathematics and art suite to the tune of over half a million pounds is soon going out to tender.

As the Principal, Pat McTaggert, commented: “This is something which will really enhance the learning and teaching of these subjects and will have an impact on the education of all in the school, it’s a significant redevelopment. There is no reason why students in Derrylin don’t have the same benefits of those living in Belfast.”

This spending comes on the back of a new health and well-being hub that is being built on the school campus in the near future.

This structure, including a state-of-the-art gym, will be open to members of the public when the school isn’t using it, such as the evenings, weekends and holidays.

Primarily though, the facility will benefit the school’s sports students, including the GCSE class, which at present have limited facilities.

With other schools in the county able to go to The Lakeland Forum, Castle Park, Bawnacre or Share Centres for sport, students in Derrylin cannot do this as it’s prohibitively far to travel within a school timetable.

As Mr. McTaggart added: “This facility will benefit the lives of not only the school community, but the wider area, and before Christmas the Minister for Education, Michelle McIlveen, visited the school to endorse the good work we do.”

In the primary sector it’s a bit more patchy, with major funding from both SEP, Fresh Start and Capital Works having gone to The Model Primary School (£8.8 million), Enniskillen Integrated Primary School (£3.5 million), St. Mary’s Primary School, Newtownbutler and Irvinestown Primary School (both £3.5 million).

Holy Trinity PS’s project costs are not yet released, but are likely to be significant, as they are getting a well-deserved new school campus.

That’s all. It’s not a lot, compared to the post-primaries, but as they will argue, their petrol tanks are larger.