The additional supports provided to schools serving disadvantaged communities are not enough to bridge the gap in outcomes between students from those communities compared to more affluent ones, an ESRI study has found.
The research adds to a body of evidence, researchers said, which suggests the need for additional supports for schools serving the most deprived communities.
The study is based on data from the 'Growing up in Ireland' project which has tracked a large cohort of children born in 1998 since they were nine years old.
It looked at how the school and the neighbourhood that a child grows up in impacts their academic performance.
Looking at the CAO points achieved by students, it found that Leaving Certificate performance varies more between schools than between neighbourhoods, and that performance differs significantly by mother's education, social class, family type and experience of financial strain.
The differences are sizeable, with a gap of over 100 points between the children of graduate mothers and those whose mothers have junior cycle education or less.
"Even taking account of social background, students in DEIS schools have much lower grades than those in socially mixed schools while those in fee-paying schools have higher grades," the study found.
Neighbourhood characteristics also make a difference to achievement, with lower grades in areas characterised by higher levels of socioeconomic disadvantage.
The Government has promised to introduce a new designation - DEIS Plus - for schools and students suffering the highest level of disadvantage.
A total of €48m has been allocated to the new scheme which is due to be introduced in both DEIS and non-DEIS schools from next September.
The ESRI analysis was conducted by Emer Smyth and Merike Dermody.
