Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 26 February 2004
118 Mr. S. Power asked the Minister for Education and Science when a special needs assistant will be assigned to a person (details supplied) in County Kildare attending Moone national school, County Kildare; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6410/04]
View answerThe school referred to by the Deputy currently has the services of one shared learning support teacher and one shared resource teaching post. I can confirm also that my Department has received applications for special educational resources, SER, from the school, including an application for resource teaching support for the pupil in question. My Department has no record of receiving an application for special needs assistant support for this pupil.
SER applications received between 15 February and 31 August 2003 are being considered at present. In all, more than 5,000 such applications were received. Priority was given to cases involving children starting school last September and all these cases were responded to at or before the commencement of the current school year.
The balance of more than 4,000 applications has been reviewed by a dedicated team comprising members of my Department's inspectorate and the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. These applications are being further considered in the context of the outcome of surveys of SER provision conducted over the past year or so. Account is also being taken of the data submitted by schools as part of the recent nationwide census of SER provision.
The processing of the applications is a complex and time-consuming operation. However, my Department is endeavouring to have this completed as quickly as possible and my officials will then respond to all applicant schools. Pending a response, schools are advised to refer to Circular 24/03, which issued in September 2003. This circular contains practical advice on how to achieve the most effective deployment of resources already allocated for special educational needs within the school.
