Bernard Allen
Ceist:56 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Education and Science the reason his Department is trying to roll back entitlement to remedial assistance in primary schools. [9218/02]
Written Answers. - Special Educational Needs.
My Department has not made any proposals to reduce or roll back entitlement to learning support teacher assistance in primary schools. Indeed, I am proud to be part of the Government which, in 1999, made the resources available to extend the learning support teacher service to every school in the country with a pupil teacher ratio of 10:1 or above.
In the year 2000, as part of my Department's reading initiative, learning support guidelines were provided to all schools with the aim of ensuring that all children achieve appropriate levels of literacy and numeracy during the course of their primary education. The learning support guidelines recommend high levels of co-operation between class teachers, learning support teachers and parents in supporting children who are experiencing learning difficulties.
In selecting pupils for remedial education, priority should be given to those pupils who achieve scores at or below the tenth percentile in standardised tests in literacy-numeracy. In order to allow for measurement error, consideration may be given to selecting pupils who achieve scores up to and including the 12th percentile. Once schools are satisfied that the needs of pupils who have very low achievement or serious learning difficulties have been met, a limited degree of flexibility may be exercised in the deployment of the learning support teacher. The principal teacher has overall responsibility for the school's learning support programme and for the operation of services for children with special educational needs.