Vol. 489 No. 1
5 Mr. O'Shea asked the Minister for Education and Science the proposals, if any, he has to provide for excessively disruptive pupils in primary schools in an effective and comprehensive way; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7653/98]
My Department has issued guidelines to boards of management to assist them in discharging their obligations in the area of school discipline. These guidelines were drawn up following consultation with representatives of management, teachers and parents and are sufficiently flexible to allow each school authority to adapt them to suit the particular needs of the school.
Each board of management is responsible for formulating, in consultation with parents, a fair and efficient code of behaviour. This code should ensure that the individuality of each child is accommodated, while acknowledging the right of each child to education in a relatively disruption free environment. The code should also include provision for dealing with serious breaches of discipline and continuously disruptive pupils.
Social attitudes and parental approaches to discipline vary from one school community to another, and it would be impractical and even undesirable for the Minister to set out a formal and detailed code of behaviour for all schools.
The report on discipline, which was commissioned by my Department and completed by Dr. Maeve Martin, deals comprehensively with the issue of discipline in schools and sets out models of best practice in this area. A copy of the report has been made available to all schools and will, I am sure, be a very valuable resource for school authorities. The findings of the report are being considered in the context of planning for the establishment of a support service for school management. I intend to put this service in place in the next school year and I am confident that it will greatly assist school management in dealing with vital areas such as school management and discipline.
I would also draw the Deputy's attention to the teaching counsellor scheme, which is currently in place on a pilot basis. The functions of the teaching counsellor are to co-ordinate a whole school approach to devising and implementing good practice and strategies which will help to prevent the occurrence of disruptive behaviour, and to teach and counsel small groups and individuals who exhibit persistent behaviour difficulties in the classroom.
The Deputy will be aware that potentially disruptive pupils frequently are in need of psychological evaluation as a first step to appropriate assistance. An Action Programme for the Millennium contains a commitment to set up a national psychological service. I have established a planning group to prepare proposals for the development of this service and I expect to receive the group's report very shortly. In the meantime, I have arranged for the immediate extension of the psychological service to primary schools through the recruitment of an additional 15 psychologists who will be assigned to various locations throughout the country. The recruitment process has been completed and I expect the new psychologists will take up duty over the next few months.
While I welcome the initiatives mentioned by the Minister, I am hearing widespread reports of highly disruptive children in primary schools. Those children cannot be expelled, although in some situations something comparable with expulsion occurs, which is roll-over suspension. There is a significant number of highly disruptive children who make it impossible to provide any kind of quality teaching. On the one hand, these children are obtaining no benefit from attending school; on the other hand, they are interfering with the rights of other children to an education. This problem is urgent and must be addressed on a widespread and structured basis. The solution in many of these cases lies in the better co-ordination of State resources and services.
Will the Minister consider providing an officer who could share some of the responsibilities for these children where families are failing in their duties? Families may not be able to provide the parenting and other supports needed by these children because of neglect, incompetence, stress or ill health. This is a large and growing problem, the full extent of which is not really appreciated.
I have little difficulty with what the Deputy said and I am largely in agreement with the manner in which he outlined the situation. We must be extremely proactive in dealing with this issue.
As I said, it is critical to put in place a comprehensive national educational psychological service so that children who display disruptive tendencies at an early stage and who are not served by the conventional, traditional curriculum can be quickly assessed. I am endeavouring to do that. There has been an historic deficit in terms of psychological provision in the education system but we are moving quickly to set up the necessary structure and appoint additional psychologists. We are about to appoint 15 additional psychologists who will be located around the country.
There will also be an expansion of the home-school liaison scheme which has been particularly important in terms of linkage between schools and parents. In that context, I would be glad to explore with the Deputy the idea of appointing an officer or utilising the home-school liaison programme with psychologists so that we could get an early assessment of children in difficulty and a proper diagnosis of those difficulties. We could then intervene in terms of putting in place a proper programme for the children concerned. I have seen this work in some area partnerships where a good combination of psychological assessment, the utilisation of a teacher counsellor in the classroom with the normal teacher and the application and utilisation of the home-school liaison scheme have worked together effectively to help disruptive children.
Will the Minister give an undertaking to the House to fully assess the situation between now and his next Question Time in terms of, first, those children at primary level who are effectively expelled through the use of roll-over suspension and, second, those children who cause major disruption in classes because there is nothing else to do and who interfere substantially with the quality of the education obtained by other children?
I do not want to give commitments which might not be realised in such a short space of time as my next Question Time could be within six weeks. However, as I have already outlined, we are committed to establishing a tracking system so that we can track every primary level pupil. It is regrettable there is no such tracking system or database at present. We are determined to put that in place in the context of the scheme for eight to 15 year olds I recently announced and launched, the first strand of which will involve the development of a tracking process.
However, I will get the Department to look at the number of cases of suspensions and expulsions of which we know. I know people will argue the rules are not being strictly implemented, but the bottom line in term of the rules is that no school may expel a pupil under 15 years of age unless the school can provide an alternative programme. We must work with schools to develop alternative programmes within schools and to facilitate, as best we can, the making available of programmes to which disruptive pupils can be referred. The Deputy is right that we must always be careful of the other students in the class who deserve a disruption free learning environment.
