Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 July 2021
956. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Education further to Parliamentary Question No. 192 of 14 July 2021, if specific examples will be provided of the steps she will take to rectify the matter given the admission that a more strategic approach is required for the training of SNAs. [39542/21]
View answerThe Government will invest in the region €2bn this year in supporting children with special needs which is over 20% of the total Education budget. By the end of this year there will be 18,000 Special Needs Assistants employed in our schools.
Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) play a huge role in supporting the inclusion of pupils with significant care needs in education and in school life. This is the first national training programme for SNAs employed in our schools and is tailored to their needs. There is no cost to serving SNAs working in schools. This course is fully funded by the Department of Education.
€2.45m will be allocated to this programme over the next 4 year period based on a full uptake of 3,500 SNAs. The first cohort of 500 SNAs enrolled in January and this phase was oversubscribed.
The Department is committed to the development of a strategic framework for SNAs that will identify need and provide quality training in a timely manner. In order to begin providing a foundation for this, it was decided that initial priority should be given to the development of a training programme for SNAs who may not have had a recent opportunity to access a training programme tailored to their role previously. The initial aim of the new programme would be to provide training and not a professional qualification.
This new programme aims to enhance the knowledge, skills and expertise of SNAs whose work is central to the inclusion of students with additional care and complex needs in school life.
The course is delivered by University College Dublin (UCD) School of Education, in conjunction with UCD School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems. UCD has a strong reputation in the world of education and training. It brings with it a wealth of experience and research knowledge in the training and has very strong quality assurance arrangements for its programmes. Feedback from programme participants is a key feature of this quality assurance process.
The programme will be evaluated on completion and the outcome will inform the approach to the training of SNAs in the future.
