Deputy First
Minister Martin McGuinness provided an update on the implementation of the social investment fund
in North Belfast during today’s Question
Time. Three projects worth £5.4m have received letters of offer with a
further offer for an increasing community services cluster on the way. The
funding will have a major impact on communities given that people were asked to
come forward with their ideas on how to improve community life - “that covers a
wide range of issues, such as education, young people and infrastructure
projects and how we can improve and refurbish existing properties in different
parts of the zones that exist throughout the North”. After overcoming
initial teething troubles it won’t be long before people begin to see the
physical changes taking place in their communities.
Roy Beggs
asked the deputy First Minister how the Delivering
Social Change signature project for improving literacy and numeracy has
achieved its goal of helping struggling children in primary and post-primary
schools. The project “has provided up to two years of additional teaching
resource to support schools in their work to improve educational outcomes for
our most disadvantaged children and young people” and positive feedback has
been received about the impact of the support. The evaluation of the programme
has revealed that 76% of primary schools stated that it has been successfully
implemented for literacy and numeracy support. In the post-primary sector, 68%
of schools stated that it had been successfully implemented for GCSE English,
and 76% for GCSE maths. A full report by the western region's education
authority on the first year's implementation of the programme has been finalised
and will be published later this month.
The Minister
also fielded questions on the Summer Camp Programme 2015, Gender Equality
Strategy, the strategy to improve the lives of people with disabilities and
funding for organisations in the women’s sector. During topical questions the
Minister also answered queries on the Erne Hospital site, Desertcreat Community
Safety College and austerity measures.
