Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 8 Oct 2003

Vol. 572 No. 1

Written Answers. - Special Educational Needs.

Finian McGrath

Question:

137 Mr. F. McGrath asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will urgently withdraw any plan to reduce special needs assistants for children with disabilities and give all children with disabilities the maximum support and assistance. [22549/03]

Minister for Education and Science (Mr. N. Dempsey)

Up to October 1998, my Department's capacity to respond to individual children with special needs was limited. This changed with a Government decision in October 1998, whereby children assessed as having special educational needs in primary schools have an automatic entitlement to a response to their needs. Since this automatic entitlement to support was introduced, the number of resource teachers in the primary system has increased from approximately 100 to in excess of 2,300 and the number of special needs assistants has grown from approximately 300 to almost 5,500 full and part-time posts.

I am determined to ensure that this considerable investment is deployed as effectively and flexibly as possible. With that aim in mind, a detailed circular 24/03, has recently issued to all schools dealing with the allocation of resources for pupils with special educational needs in national schools. The basic purpose of this circular is twofold: to ensure that applications for resource teacher and special needs assistant support are processed as efficiently as possible; and that such resources are targeted to best effect on an on-going basis.

The circular highlights a number of practical strategies to assist schools with existing resource allocations. For example wherever possible, schools should provide additional help for pupils with special educational needs in the mainstream classroom or, if necessary, in small groups; bearing in mind the various categories of special education teachers, including resource, learning support and visiting teachers deployed in the education system, schools are encouraged to develop strategies that draw on the skills of all such teachers, without making artificial distinctions between them; while resource teaching allocations have been approved on the basis of individual applications, the overriding principle is that these resources should be deployed in the manner that best meets the needs of pupils with special educational needs in the school; and before applying for additional special needs assistants, schools should review their existing allocations to see whether an identified need can be met by re-deploying available resources. Where appropriate, principals may deploy individual special needs assistants to support several pupils, perhaps in more than one classroom.

I want to emphasise that circular 24/03 is not proposing a cut in resources for pupils with special educational needs. Schools will appreciate, however, that the level of approved resources is not immutable. Account must be taken of the progress being made by individual pupils with special educational needs and of the departure from the school of such pupils. It would be expected that schools would notify the Department of instances where resources had become surplus to requirements so that these could be redeployed as necessary. Put simply, the circular requires schools to take full account of what they already have before applying for more. Any other approach would be neither appropriate nor sustainable.