Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 January 2024
233. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for Education about unclaimed hours EAL and part time SET teaching hours; the reasons these cannot be banked in the midst of an on-going teaching shortage; are there plans to change this; if there are plans to allow schools to bank these hours in order to meet the needs of vulnerable children; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3468/24]
View answerThe Department recognises the importance of providing well-timed and appropriate support to pupils with identified learning needs and the crucial role this plays to support these students in their educational development.
The Special Education Teaching allocation for mainstream schools provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on the educational needs profile of each school.
Schools are frontloaded with ring-fenced SET resources for the purpose of supporting pupils with an identified and recorded special education learning need. This allocation allows schools to provide additional teaching support for pupils who require such support in their schools based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.
It is a matter for schools to deploy SET resources effectively to meet the needs identified in the Student Support Plans, which should be based on the continuum of support framework. Once the Department allocates SET hours to a school it is the responsibility of the school and the board management to utilise the allocation to meet the needs of those students with special educational needs. Special Education Teaching Hours should only be used for their intended purpose to support pupils with an identified and recorded special education learning need.
The importance in providing regular and structured support on a weekly basis to students with special education needs is crucial to their educational development and long term life prospects and for that reason it is in the interests of these children that all hours allocated to them in the current school year are used as envisaged.
Schools have now been advised to ensure that they have plans in place to ensure that they have access to substitutes to cover teacher absences.
Supply panels have been put in place to support schools to access substitutes. Schools can also make arrangements to have their own regular substitutes to call on if they need a substitute. There is also a National Substitute service available to schools.
Sequence for covering all teacher absences is as follows :
• · Supply panel if the school is part of a supply panel cluster arrangement,
• · School’s own panel of regular substitutes,
• · National substitute service,
• · Administrative Principal if applicable
• · Local arrangements that facilitate the pupils to be supervised in a manner that does not involve them being split between existing classes in classrooms.
