Joan Burton
Question:250. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to improve access to special educational supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34787/16]
View answerTuesday, 15 November 2016
Questions (250)
Written answers
The Government is committed to ensuring that all children with special educational needs can have access to an education appropriate to their needs, preferably in school settings through the primary and post-primary school network.
The policy of my Department is that children with special educational needs should be included where possible and appropriate in mainstream placements with additional supports provided. In circumstances where children with special educational need require more specialised interventions, special school or special class places are also available.
Children, therefore, have a number of placement options including mainstream placement with support, placement in a special class in a mainstream school or placement in a special class in a special school. Such placements facilitate access to individualised education programmes, which may draw from a range of appropriate educational interventions delivered by fully qualified professional teachers with the support of special needs assistants and the appropriate school curriculum.
Funding for special education provision in 2016 will amount to some €1.5 billion, which is equivalent to over 17% of the gross overall current allocation for education and training and an increase of 10% in the past two years.
This funding provides for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, access to SNA support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation in special schools and special classes, specialised equipment, additional teacher training and the services of the National Educational Psychological Service.
This year, 12,900 Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) are available for allocation to schools, to the end of 2016, which represents an increase of 23% over the numbers allocated in 2011.
There are currently over 12,400 learning support and Resource Teacher posts in mainstream primary and post primary schools.
The NCSE has allocated 7430 of 7,452 available resource teacher posts to schools for the 2016/17 school year. The allocation of 7430 posts for schools represents an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers which have been allocated since the 2011/12 school year, at which point 5265 posts were allocated.
In addition, over 5000 learning support posts have been allocated to schools under the General Allocation Model for primary schools and Learning Support allocations for post primary schools.
Approximately 150 new Special Classes will be opened for the 2016/17 school year, which means there will be over 1,150 special classes in place, compared to 548 special classes in 2011.
125 special schools also provide specialist education for those pupils who need it.
As part of the recent Budget announcements, an additional 115 SNA posts at an annual cost of €3.75m will be provided for allocation from January to June 2017 and an additional €18 million in 2017 to provide for around 900 additional resource teacher posts.
I also announced that following development and piloting over the past number of years, a new model for the allocation of teaching resources for children with special educational needs will be implemented from September 2017. Further details regarding implementation of the new model will be announced in the coming months.
The combination of supports provided means that school places are available for all children with special educational needs, regardless of their level of need.
The provision which is being made ensures that children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education and be supported in a manner appropriate to their needs. I can confirm that this Government will continue to ensure that the supports required to ensure that all children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education will be provided.
There is still a long way to go and as committed to in the Programme for a Partnership Government, I plan to examine the adequacy of the present policies and provision, and their scope for improvement, particularly in relation to speech and language difficulties and early intervention.