Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 21 March 2017
335. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Education and Skills the number of assessments that have been carried out by the National Educational Psychological Service for each class level for primary school pupils, that is junior infants, senior infants and so on, or alternatively by year of age, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13587/17]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware my Department’s National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) provides an educational psychological service to schools through the direct assignment of a NEPS psychologist and in some cases through by providing schools access to the Scheme for Commissioning Psychological Assessments (SCPA) where schools can have an assessment carried out by a member of the panel of private psychologists approved by NEPS, and NEPS will pay the psychologist the fees for this assessment directly.
In relation to SCPA assessments my Department processes payment returns from schools certifying satisfactory delivery of an assessment. It does not centrally record the age or class of the child/ pupil undergoing assessment.
Referrals undertaken by NEPS psychologists do have a range of detail recorded on the NEPS Casetrack database and I include for the Deputy’s information a breakdown of such referrals in primary schools in 2015/16 by age of pupil.
Number of referrals undertaken by NEPS psychologists in Primary schools 2015/16 by age of pupil:
|
Age |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
|
|
Referrals |
46 |
522 |
659 |
800 |
868 |
803 |
691 |
660 |
978 |
492 |
6,519 |
