Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 1 October 2013
258. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will outline in tabular form the number of special needs assistants in our schools this year and every year since 1997. [40760/13]
View answerI wish to advise the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) is responsible, through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports including Special Needs Assistant (SNA) support, to support children with special educational needs. The NCSE operates within my Department's established criteria for the allocation of such supports and the staffing resources available to my Department.
There are 10,575 Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) SNA posts available for allocation in the 2013/14 school year which is the same number of posts which were available for allocation for the 2012/13 school year. The NCSE has notified schools of their SNA allocation for 2013/14, based on the number of valid applications received and the extent of the care needs of qualifying children. To date the NCSE has allocated 10,490 WTE SNA posts to schools. Every child who meets the criteria for access to SNA support in the current school year is in receipt of this support. The remaining posts are available for allocation throughout the school year for new assessments of disability, new entrants, or emergency or late applications, in accordance with the terms of the SNA scheme. The specific information requested by the Deputy in relation to the number of SNAs allocated since 1997 is provided in the attached table.
|
Year |
Number of Special Needs Assistants 1997 - 2013 |
|
*1997 |
270 |
|
*1998 |
293 |
|
*1999 |
558 |
|
*2000 |
1495 |
|
2001 |
2988 |
|
2002 |
4979 |
|
2003 |
5367 |
|
2004 |
5869 |
|
2005 |
7294 |
|
2006 |
8390 |
|
2007 |
9824 |
|
2008 |
10,442 |
|
2009 |
10,342 |
|
2010 |
10,543 |
|
**2011 |
10,117 (10,320) |
|
***2012 |
10390 (10,487) |
|
# 2013 |
10,490 |
* SNA data from 1997 – 2001 relates to Primary and Special Schools only.
** Total number of SNA posts approved by the NCSE for the 2011/12 school year was 10,320. The figure of 10,117 represents the number of posts in place at the end of Dec 2011. By the end of the 2011/12 school year, at June 2012, the NCSE had approved the allocation of 10,320 SNA posts to schools, from within the overall cap of 10,575 posts.
*** Total number of SNA posts approved by the NCSE for the 2012/13 school year was 10,487. The figure of 10,390 represents the number of posts in place at the end of Dec 2012. By the end of the 2012/13 school year, at June 2013, the NCSE had approved the allocation of 10,487 SNA posts to schools, from within the overall cap of 10,575 posts.
# Number of SNA posts allocated as at September 2013.
