Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 July 2014
64. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department will be issuing a new circular on special needs assistants in view of the recent acknowledgment that the circular issued before Easter was badly phrased; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29395/14]
View answerThe circular referred to by the Deputy has been designed to clarify and restate the purpose of the SNA scheme, which is to provide schools with additional support staff to assist children with special educational care needs. My officials have held a number of meetings with management bodies and parent representative groups to address concerns which have arisen since the circular issued. The purpose of the circular is not and was not to reduce the level of SNA support being allocated to schools. For the coming school year, over 10,900 SNAs are being allocated to schools, which is more than at any time previously.
In order to address concerns parents may have about the circular, the National Council for Special Education has been asked to prepare an information booklet for parents to explain the provisions of the circular and allay fears they may have. To be frank, there were fears as a result of the circular. On reflection, when one considers that we are preparing an information booklet for parents to explain the provisions of the circular, it might have been better phrased.
In several of his responses today the Minister of State has indicated that the number of SNAs is higher than it has been in the past. However, the problem is that on the ground, when one goes to any school, the reality is very different. Teachers, principals and parents will tell the Minister of State what they are telling the rest of us, namely, how difficult it is to ensure SNA support is provided for a student whom they feel very much needs it.
More and more, they are being asked to share SNA resources among students. The burden and task of deciding how an SNA resource is allocated among students with a need is left with the teacher. This is a totally unfair position to leave teachers, principals and school management in because resources are stretched. Although numbers may be high, the difficulty involved in ensuring that adequate care and support is given to students who need it is very different.
This particular circular only added to the difficulty. The circular said in respect of SNA support that:
The care needs outlined must be of such significance that they are beyond that which would normally be expected to be provided to a child by the child’s class teacher, support teacher, or other school teachers, or beyond the level of assistance which could be offered to the student by his or her fellow pupils in school.
In respect of post-primary level, the circular stated that only students with chronic and serious care needs should require SNA support and that continued and ongoing access to SNA support is generally not desirable for post-primary students. The phraseology led to many of the concerns. I know the Department is putting together an information booklet but alongside this, would it not be better to withdraw that circular and put out a fresh one, which would hopefully allay many of the concerns it has caused?
I do not think it is necessary to withdraw the circular. The intent contained within it is perfectly legitimate. Recent Department and National Council for Special Education reports concluded that while the SNA scheme has been very successful in supporting the care needs of children with special needs in schools, the intended purpose of that scheme was not always generally well understood by parents or schools and the scope and purpose of the scheme needed to be clarified within that circular, which is what happened. The purpose of the circular was not to scare or somehow lead parents to conclude that there was going to a reduction in SNA supports. It was simply to clarify the role of the SNA within the school setting and I am confident that it did that. An explanatory booklet will be available for parents in the very near future. Since 2011, we have protected resources within special education in very difficult economic circumstances.
I thank the Minister of State for his response. Could he clarify his previous response to Deputy Finian McGrath about the supports children with Down's syndrome can expect this September? As has been rightly pointed out, there was a High Court case in the past couple of weeks involving two families who challenged the Government because their children with Down's syndrome were not entitled to resource teaching hours. The High Court judge ruled that those children should get the full allocation of resource teaching hours.
The only way those children got those hours was because their families went to the High Court. As things stand, the only way other children with Down's syndrome will get the same supports is through their families having the financial wherewithal to go to the High Court. This is completely unacceptable. I believe we should see a situation whereby the Government allocates resource teaching hours in September 2014 to all those children diagnosed with Down's syndrome, not just to those whose families can afford to go to court to get the hours. Can the Minister give us absolute clarity about the situation facing children with Down's syndrome who are starting school and going back to school this September?
And no ducking the question this time.
It would not be the intention of this Government to force any parent to go to the High Court or any other court to be able to access the supports their children require within the school setting irrespective of the special needs they have. I will endeavour to talk to the officials concerned in the Department and if possible, to bring that clarity to Deputies McConalogue and Finian McGrath in the very near future.
