Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 June 2021
766. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education the number of additional special educational teachers that have been hired this academic year; and the number of additional special educational teachers that will be hired for the 2021-2022 academic year. [31158/21]
View answerA total of 13,623 Special Education Teachers are currently allocated to provide additional teaching support to pupils who have additional learning needs, or special educational needs, and who attend mainstream primary or post primary school classes.
Of this total figure, an additional 95 posts of these post were allocated to schools over the course of the 2020/21 school year.
For the coming school year, in order to minimise disruption and upheaval for schools as much as possible in light of Covid-19, and to provide for continuity of allocations, the existing Special Education Teacher Allocations for schools will be maintained for the 2021/22 school year, with re-profiled allocations now due to be made from September 2022.
This means that schools will not have to engage in an extensive redeployment of posts, or re-clustering, this year.
It also means that schools will have greater levels of certainty as to the staff that they will have in place for September.
No school will see a cut, or reduction, to their special education teaching support next year.
Additional allocations will continue to be made for new schools, schools which achieve developing status, and for exceptional circumstances. Schools that qualify for additional mainstream developing school posts also qualify for additional special education teaching allocations to take account of this developing status.If a school considers that exceptional circumstances have arisen in their school, which means that they cannot provide for the special educational teaching needs of pupils due to very significant changes to the school profile occurring, a school may seek a review of their allocations by the NCSE.
As the number of schools which will qualify for developing school allocations, or new allocations as a result of exceptional needs reviews, is not yet known, it is not possible to advise at this point how many additional allocations will be made for schools over the course of the 2021/22 school year.
