Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 June 2022
30. Deputy Alan Dillon asked the Minister for Education the number of special needs teachers and assistants who are supporting pupils in primary, secondary and special schools in the current academic year; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34860/22]
View answerEnabling children with special educational needs to receive an education is a priority for this Government.
This year, my Department will spend in excess of €2 Billion, or over 25% of the Department’s budget on providing a wide range of schemes and supports for children with special educational needs.
This includes additional teaching and care supports.
As a result, the number of special education teachers, special needs assistants and special class and school places are at unprecedented levels.
The Special Needs Assistant (SNA) scheme is designed to provide schools with additional adult support staff who can assist children with special educational needs who also have additional and significant care needs. Such support is provided in order to facilitate the attendance of those pupils at school and also to minimise disruption to class or teaching time for the pupils concerned, or for their peers, and with a view to developing their independent living skills.
Budget 2022 provides funding for an additional 1,165 SNAs (in 2022) to provide support to children with special educational needs, which will bring the total number of SNAs to 19,169 at the end of December 2022.
Provision for 19,169 SNAs as at 31st December 2022 will represent an increase of 81% since 2011 at which time 10,575 were provided.
The Special Education Teaching (SET) allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on each school’s educational profile. This model has replaced the previous model of allocating resource teaching support and learning support to schools based on a diagnosis of disability.
The Special Education Teacher allocation, allows schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support in their schools and for schools to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.
13,765 Special Education Teaching (SET) posts currently exist within mainstream primary and post primary schools. This enables schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support and to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs. It gives flexibility to schools in deploying their resources. They can take account of the actual learning needs of pupils rather than being guided primarily by a particular diagnosis of disability. The Department has published guidelines for schools as to how they should deploy their resources. Budget 2022 provides for an additional 620 new SET posts in special education. This will bring the total number of SET in the mainstream school system to 14,385 in 2022.
The allocation gives greater flexibility to schools as to how they can deploy their resources, to take account of the actual learning needs pupils have, as opposed to being guided by a particular diagnosis of disability, and schools are guided as to how they should make such allocation decisions.
The school will take account of learning needs of children as evidenced by performance in schools but also supported where relevant by information provided regarding the nature of a condition that a pupil may have.
In terms of Special Schools 1,305 teacher are allocated for the school year 2022/23 as at 30th May 2022 with 2,825 SNA's allocated.
