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Special Educational Needs Expenditure

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 3 October 2013

Thursday, 3 October 2013

Questions (118)

Seán Ó Fearghaíl

Question:

118. Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl asked the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of restoring resource teaching hours to the level that existed in 2010-11 and in 2011-12; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41730/13]

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Written answers

I wish to advise the Deputy that the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), through its network of local Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs), is responsible for processing applications from schools for special educational needs supports, including resource teaching allocations. The NCSE operates within my Department's established criteria for the allocation of Special Education supports and the staffing resources available to my Department. The Deputy will be aware that in June of this year, I confirmed that despite the fact that there had again been an increase in demand for resource teaching allocations this year, I had maintained the allocations for schools at the level which had applied for the 2012/13 school year. This allocation was 85% of the Special Education Review Committee (SERC) recommended resource teaching allocations. All schools were advised to apply to the NCSE for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2013/14 school year by 15th March, 2013. The NCSE published details of all of their initial allocations for resource teaching and SNA support for the 2013/2014 school year in June of this year. These details are now available on the NCSE website, www.ncse.ie, which details the allocations made for each school on a per county basis. The NCSE allocated 5,284 whole time equivalent resource teaching posts to schools at this point. It should be noted that 700 of these posts are allocated to post primary schools to meet High Incidence and Learning Support needs. These posts remain allocated at 100% of the recommended levels. In order to meet any late demand for resource teaching support arising between 15th March, 2013 and the start of the school year, the NCSE requested all schools to submit outstanding applications for resource teaching support to the NCSE by 20th September, 2013. The NCSE is presently processing these applications and has estimated that up to 480 additional resource teaching posts will be required to meet demand in respect of valid applications received to 20th September 2013. If this estimate is fully realised, this would provide for a total allocation of 5,764 whole time equivalent posts. In order to restore resource teaching hours to the level that existed in 2011/12, which was 90% of SERC recommended resource teaching allocations, 6,062 posts would be required, which would require an additional 298 posts at an approximate additional annual cost of €17.9 Million. In order to restore resource teaching hours to the level that existed in 2010/11, which was 100% of SERC recommended resource teaching allocations, 6,657 posts would be required, which would require an additional 893 posts at an approximate additional annual cost of €53.5 Million.

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