The Inspectorate and inspection 2021 - 2023

The Inspectorate is a division of the Department of Education. Its duties are outlined in the Education Act 1998, which sets out evaluative, advisory, and capacity-building functions. The Inspectorate operates with statutory independence in inspecting schools and other education settings. Its overarching mission is to provide for quality assurance of the Irish education system experienced by children and young people from birth to eighteen years. The inclusion, wellbeing and safeguarding of children and young people are core purposes in the Inspectorate’s work.

The Inspectorate inspects a range of educational settings. These include state-funded early learning and care (ELC) settings, recognised primary and post-primary schools, centres delivering the Youthreach Programme, agricultural colleges and other educational settings. Through the evidence gathered during inspection visits, the Inspectorate evaluates and reports on the quality of educational provision to promote improved learning outcomes and experiences for all children and young people.

The Inspectorate uses a range of inspection types to assess the quality of education provision in schools and other educational settings. The data presented in this section covers the period 1 January 2021 to 31 December 2023.

Covid-19 caused much disruption to the work of schools in the period. Adaptations to the advisory and evaluation work of the Inspectorate were required to respond to this. Inspection activities reflected both the continuity of core quality assurance efforts and the emergence of new priorities in response to changing educational needs. For example, some inspection activities continued throughout the period, some were developed specifically for the pandemic period and some were paused for a time and then reintroduced.

There were ongoing inspections of settings participating in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme. Inspections of education provision for babies and toddlers under three in early learning and care (ELC) settings were introduced in the period.

In primary and special schools, certain types of inspections were impacted by pandemic-related restrictions in 2021, but subsequent years saw upward growth in, as well as diversification of, inspection types.

The post-primary sector experienced a similar overall trend towards recovery and expansion of inspection activities by 2023. Subject inspections, in particular, saw a marked increase, reflecting a renewed emphasis on subject-specific teaching and learning quality as schools emerged from the disruptions of the pandemic.

Child protection and safeguarding inspections remained a priority across both primary and post-primary sectors in the period. Evaluations related to education provision for children and young people arriving from Ukraine and other countries and evaluations related to English as an additional language were introduced in 2023, in response to the needs of changing student demographics in schools.

Supporting the safe provision of schooling (SSPS) inspection visits, which were prominent in 2021 and 2022, were ceased in 2023, reflecting the education system’s transition away from acute pandemic response measures.

Throughout the period, the Inspectorate published a range of individual inspection reports on schools, early learning and care settings, centres for education and other educational settings. In addition, twenty-one thematic reports were published. These provided a composite analysis of individual inspection findings and inspection reports across a range of themes. They were designed to provide stakeholders across the education system with up-to-date information on, and insights into, education quality and performance.

Table 1: Summary of Inspectorate activities

• (*) Early Childhood Care and Education programme
• ( **) The majority of inspections during the Covid period consisted of shorter inspection types, with the typical inspection programme resuming in 2023.

Table 2: Inspections of early learning and care settings participating in the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programme

Table 3: Inspections of primary and special schools

• (*) *DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools): An Action Plan for Educational Inclusion.

Table 4: Inspections of post-primary schools

• (*) DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools): An Action Plan for Educational Inclusion

Table 5: School self-evaluation advisory visits

Table 6: Inspection of centres for education

Table 7: Other inspections and advisory visits

Table 9: Reports issued to schools and centres, not publishe