Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 May 2016
1. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills to address concerns over the long waiting times for Special Needs assessment by the National Educational Psychological Service; and if he intends to implement the new system of allocation of resource teaching hours allocation, that is currently being piloted on a national basis in September 2016. [11137/16]
View answerI understand Deputy Thomas Byrne is substituting for Deputy Charlie McConalogue.
Deputy McConalogue has been appointed Fianna Fáil Party spokesperson on agriculture and I have succeeded him as the Fianna Fáil Party spokesperson on education. It is a privilege to assume this important role and I thank my party leader, Deputy Micheál Martin, for my appointment. This role has had great resonance over many years in my party in terms of various achievements. Today, I will ask a series of important questions that were tabled before my appointment, the first of which relates to concerns about the long waiting times for special needs assessments. Is it the Minister's intention to implement nationally the new system of resource teaching hours allocation currently under pilot?
I congratulate Deputies Thomas Byrne and Carol Nolan on taking up their new responsibilities. Like me, they are new to the job, although Deputy Nolan has an advantage over us in that she has worked in the education system. I am sure, however, that Deputy Byrne and I will be fast learners.
With 506 pages in the ministerial brief, it may take some time to master it.
It is good to see a man from the royal county.
Support from the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, is available to every recognised primary and second level school. NEPS, in consultation with schools, prioritises children for support, consultation and-or assessment who have failed to make adequate progress despite an appropriate continuum of support being delivered for these children. Under its model of service, NEPS focuses on building school capacity by encouraging schools to engage in initial assessment, educational planning and remedial intervention for pupils with learning, emotional or behavioural difficulties. Teachers may consult their NEPS psychologist should they need to at this stage in the process. Only in the event of a failure to make reasonable progress in spite of the school's best efforts in consultation with NEPS will the psychologist become involved with an individual child for intensive support.
The support NEPS provides to schools and students is vital. The programme for a partnership Government has committed to invest additional resources in this area, with the objective of bringing the total staff up to 238 educational psychologists, an increase of 25% over the lifetime of the Government. This will allow NEPS to increase its level of support to schools.
The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, has a statutory role under the Education of Persons with Special Educational Needs Act to provide me with policy advice on matters concerning the education of persons with special educational needs.
The NCSE identified that the current model for allocating resource teachers to schools is potentially inequitable because access to the range of professional assessments required for the diagnosis of low incident disabilities is not always readily available to those who cannot afford to access them privately. The council also advised that the current model can lead to unnecessary labelling of children from a young age.
The council has proposed a new resource teaching allocation model which will, when introduced, remove the formal requirement for diagnostic assessment to access additional support. A pilot of the model is taking place across a number of schools in advance of implementation in the school system generally. As the pilot is still under way, it will not be possible to implement the new model in all schools in the coming year. The pilot has been developed in order to test the model and to allow for the practical effect of the application of the new model in the 47 pilot schools to be evaluated.
A review of the pilot has now commenced. This will allow us to take into account the learning experiences of schools, principals, pupils and the views of parents over the course of the pilot. On conclusion of the review, a decision will be taken on the timeframe for the full implementation of the proposed new allocation model.
Before I call Deputy Thomas Byrne, I remind Members that there is no lead-in to questions under current Standing Orders. The Minister has two minutes for an initial reply and there are four minutes overall for supplementary questions and replies, with a one-minute limit on each supplementary question.
As this is my first day putting questions to the Minister, I do not expect to take up too much time. I am still learning the ropes in respect of procedure.
This is a serious issue and I am glad the pilot scheme is not being rolled out nationally yet. Learning support resource teaching should be based on need. Many schools would face significant reductions and pupils with special learning needs would have to do without support if this system was introduced on a national basis. If we used the analogy of medical care, it would be equivalent to basing the allocation of such care on general area demographics rather than patient need. Will the Minister outline when it is proposed that the pilot scheme will end, when the report relating to it will be submitted and when he will have results in that regard?
The reasons for moving to the other system are outlined in my reply. The council responsible for special education needs feels resources are required for children to be professionally assessed, but the parents of many children are unable to afford that. Therefore, some children's needs might be undetected. The new model takes into account not only children who have had an assessment within the school but also those who may be waiting for an assessment. Therefore, it looks at the whole school, the make-up in terms of children and the likely need. It avoids all the time and effort that goes into evaluation and puts the resource into the school. Obviously, the programme must be tested to see whether it will work and any transition will need to take account of the sensibilities expressed by Deputy Thomas Byrne. It is believed that a whole-school approach is better, and that the best approach is for the school to take special education seriously and integrate it right across its programmes. That is the thinking behind this pilot programme.
The review of the pilot has commenced, but I do not have a date for when it will be available. It will not be available for the coming September but should be available after that.
More progress could be made if additional resources were provided. The Minister has outlined some of the resources that will be provided - that there will be more educational psychologists and more resources for the NEPS in order to reduce waiting times for assessments. I see that as the best way to reduce inequality, give everybody a chance and ensure that whatever resources are available are directed on the basis of the need of the individual child.
In recent years we have got used to considering the best interests of the child, not the best interests of the demographic. It is acknowledged that there is an issue in regard to the tests. In some cases it is not a question of having the financial resources that people can have assessments done earlier, but rather of sacrificing everything else to pay for them
I understand that in the 47 schools in the pilot programme there has been a significant investment of support to ensure the resources, including special needs assistants, resource teachers and learning support teachers, are deployed in the best interest of the entire school population but that they are focused, in particular, on children with special needs. The schools are using the additional resources to cope and are doing so on the basis of a whole-school rather than carving it out. It is believed that is better and that it gets the schools to develop policies and practices that are good for inclusion of children with special needs.
While I understand the criticisms being made in regard to moving from the rigid allocation model to a broader one, it is believed a school will better serve its pupils if they are not faced with a long wait for assessment and if the proposed practice is integrated in a new way in schools, taking on board the advice of the council. This best practice advice is being piloted and, hopefully, that will allay the Deputy's fears.
