To ask the Minister of Education for his assessment of the availability of educational psychologists.

The Independent Review of Education (December 2023) considered the Education Authority’s (EA) Educational Psychology Service (EPS) and recommended that ‘the staffing of the Educational Psychology Service should return to the level of five or so years ago with around 130 fully qualified psychologists’.

My department has invested in the Educational Psychology workforce and is currently funding 38 student places on the Doctorate in Educational, Child and Adolescent Psychology (DECAP) course at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) which provides the qualification to enable registration as a practitioner. Those completing the course are obliged to take up employment in the EA’s EPS for at least three years after they qualify. Consequently, we have seen the staffing in EPS increase.

There are currently 130 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff in the EPS (excluding administrative staff), comprised of 94.06 FTE Educational Psychologists and 35.87 FTE Assistant Educational Psychologists. It is expected that the number of Educational Psychologists will continue to increase annually as students complete the DECAP course.