Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 13 February 2024
68. Deputy Gary Gannon asked the Minister for Education how the contents of her Department’s Circular 0002/2024 provides for additional therapeutic, behavioural and psychological supports for schools, given the current lack thereof, which remains a major barrier to fully inclusive education; and to provide an explanation for the reduction of allocated SET hours for schools around the country. [6343/24]
View answerWill the Minister for Education outline how the contents of her Department’s Circular 0002/2024 provides for additional therapeutic, behavioural and psychological supports for schools, given the current lack thereof, which remains a major barrier to fully inclusive education, and will she provide an explanation for the reduction of allocated special education teaching, SET, hours for schools throughout the country? That was the question I submitted a week and a half ago. Given the information that has been sent to schools in the past week, I appreciate that this has become more intensified still. Will the Minister outline the justification for this decision and will she assuage schools of the fears they have expressed to us in recent days?
I believe Deputy Ó Ríordáin also wishes to come in on this.
Deputy Ó Ríordáin can come in on the supplementary question at the end.
I thank the Leas-Cheann Comhairle.
I thank the Deputy for the question. Deputy Gannon is quite correct that a circular was sent and the special education teacher allocations were issued to all mainstream schools on 6 February. It only raised the provision of teachers and there are a range of ongoing measures for the other supports, which I will also address with the Deputy.
It is important to say there has been no reduction in the overall number of special education teachers in our schools. The Deputy will be aware we have 14,600 special education teachers in total. This is an increase of 1,000 since 2021. This special education teacher allocation model has been in place since 2017. The Department then commenced a review of that in late 2022 to ensure it was meeting the changing needs within special education. During this review the Department listened to feedback and listened to the concerns and issues raised by our education partners and schools about the existing model. This was done through a series of different consultations. It is important to say there was consultation on this.
The feedback from those consultations was inputted and used to prepare these allocations.
The allocation model for the 2024-25 school year distributes the total number of special education teacher posts in line with each school's profile of need. It is intended that some schools will gain under this distribution, with those gains to be balanced by an equivalent reduction in schools where the model indicates less need. In totality, 67% of schools will either get an increased allocation or will retain their existing allocation. For the schools for which there will be a reduction, in more than 70% of cases, it will be less than five hours. That is very important.
More important still is the need to ascertain whether, in next year's allocation, the complex needs of individual students will be disregarded within the criteria. Will the Minister of State clarify that? Where a student has a multitude of complex issues, will that be disregarded? If that is the case, it is a retrograde step. It is not just me saying this. I genuinely have no interest in coming into this Chamber and expounding my own view as an individual TD. I have been contacted by a variety of TDs, principals, SNAs and parents throughout my constituency and beyond who fully believe that the experience of individual students will be disregarded under the new system. If that is the case, it will be a retrograde step. I think the Minister of State will agree with me on that.
Is it the case that the Department of Education has reduced the criteria considered for the allocation of SET hours for schools from five to three for the coming year? We can also agree that, if so, it is another retrograde step. Will the Minister of State clarify whether there is to be a retrograde step in terms of the individual experience of students in schools and, second, whether the number of criteria is being reduced from five to three? I would love to be proven wrong on this.
I reiterate that there was full consultation with the education partners-----
There was not.
Will the Deputy let me speak? I did not interrupt him.
You are wrong in what you are saying.
We will have to agree to disagree on that. I am not going to say something that is incorrect. There was consultation with the education partners. We listened to their feedback and concerns and they were included in this review.
The Deputy mentioned children with complex needs. As Minister of State with responsibility for special education, I can say that it will never be the case that the needs of children with complex needs are not taken into account. The review makes sure children with the greatest level of need will get that attention. They are supported under this model by the use of reliable and accurate school-level data from standardised tests. Gender will no longer be used as an input, which is a progressive step. It is accepted that female pupils have similar levels of need to male pupils, which can manifest later in their development. The new model is more reliable and more responsive to each school's profile of need.
Complex needs will not be captured by standardised tests. That is the crux of the argument as to why this is a poor mechanism for categorising complex needs. A multitude of different complex needs are individualised to students within the school setting. That will not be captured under the new model. I again assure the Minister of State that I did not wake up this morning and decide to come in and challenge her on this. It is the teachers, parents and others who have absolute belief in the students concerned who motivated me to raise this issue. There is a multitude of different ways in which the data will not be captured.
The Minister of State said she engaged in consultation with education partners, which would include, for example, the Irish National Teachers Organisation, INTO. I presume that if there was a comprehensive consultation, the teacher unions would have been involved in it. However, the INTO has highlighted that in not considering complex needs, children who are homeless, at risk or in care and residential settings, students who are new to the State and those who speak a lesser standard of English than others in the classroom, those children will be less well off under the new model. The Minister of State says there was consultation, but consultation is not having a little meeting around a table and then going off and doing what she will. That is not consultation. She is wrong here.
I support what Deputy Gannon is saying. I, too, have been contacted by a number of schools in respect of this issue. The reality is that the old system was based on school data and included enrolment, gender, which the Minister of State has indicated is no longer a criterion, the profile of the school, complex needs and the level of deprivation. Under the new system, which is again based on school data, the criteria will be enrolment, the profile of the school and the level of deprivation in the area. The gender and complex needs criteria are gone. On the basis of the Minister of State's statistics, 33% of schools will have a lesser allocation. She has outlined that. How is the new system better? Why, as Deputy Gannon rightly asked, is the INTO criticising the new system, which the Minister of State says has been formulated following a significant level of consultation? Was INTO involved in the consultation and did it sign off on it? I do not think any teacher union would sign off on a system under which 33% of schools will have less of an allocation.
Like everyone else, I have been contacted by schools on this issue, including a member of staff at Scoil Naomh Lorcan. I have already read her words into the record but I do so again because she put it better than I ever could:
The new model is based on academic results and does not take into account [complex needs]. The Department will say it is up to the principal to give out SET hours but they do not have enough hours allocated so they either help the children with special or additional needs or they just help those children below the tenth percentile with maths and English. The new model has not enough hours allocated for both.
Representatives from Scoil Mhuire na nGael in Bay Estate, the estate I am from, were in Leinster House today. They said it looks like their school might lose two special education teacher positions. They believe they might be able to pull one back, but we are talking about not being able to deliver for pupils with complex needs. We cannot do so based on academic data alone. Some of the people making the grade will do so on the basis of the supports being provided to them. We need to look at those anomalies.
According to a poll by the National Principals Forum, 76.4% of primary school principals say the SET allocations for 2024-25 do not meet the needs of children with additional needs and that the allocation for the academic year is wholly inadequate. Three pillars are identified in the circular that was put out, that is, the enrolment allocation, the educational teaching profile, which is the literacy and numeracy profile, and educational disadvantage. In the grounds for review, the circular specifically states:
For example, significant increase in availability of social housing or the opening of a homeless shelter resulting in a large number of children with special educational needs enrolling in a school. This will have resulted in a significant increase in enrolment figures.
To which pillar does that eventuality relate? A ground for appeal that is not specified is where there are newly identified needs of a child who is currently enrolled in the school.
I appreciate that the Deputies are making representations on behalf of various principals and constituents who may have contacted them. I have no difficulty with that. It is important to bear in mind the actual statistics in respect of the new distribution model, which show that 67% of all schools will either have an increased allocation or will maintain their allocation. It is important to understand as well that this is a distribution model, which means the total available SET resources are distributed as fairly and equitably as possible across the nearly 4,000 schools.
There was engagement with the INTO and other education partners on the model. That feedback was used to inform the outcome. The SET allocations are distributed every year. Schools have received the allocation for 2024-25 earlier than was the case in previous years, which gives them more time for overall planning. The new model is more reliable and more responsive to each school's profile of need. It involves a number of inputs, including enrolment numbers, as alluded to, which are a key driver of the level of need in schools, together with educational need and educational disadvantage. Children with complex needs are supported under the model.
They are not.
