Joan Burton
Ceist:155. Deputy Joan Burton asked the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to improve access to special educational supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10697/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraWednesday, 1 March 2017
Ceisteanna (155)
Freagraí scríofa
I wish to advise the Deputy that funding for special education provision in 2017 is estimated to amount to some €1.68 billion, which is equivalent to over 19% of the gross overall current allocation for education and training and an increase of 12% in spending in the past two years. This funding provides for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, access to Special Needs Assistant (SNA) support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation in special schools and special classes, specialised equipment, additional teacher training and the services of the National Educational Psychological Service.
As part the recent Budget announcements, I announced that an additional 115 Special Needs Assistants (SNA) posts at an annual cost of €3.75m will be provided for allocation in 2017, bringing the total number of SNAs available for allocation to schools to 13,015 to the end of 2017. This represents an increase of 23% over the numbers available in 2011, which was 10,575. This is a higher level of SNA support than ever before, which ensures that children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education and be supported in a manner appropriate to their needs.
At my request, the NCSE are currently undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the Special Needs Assistant Scheme and I have specifically asked the NCSE to identify the most appropriate form of support options to provide better outcomes for students with Special Educational Needs, having regard to the significant amount of State investment in this area.
There are also over 12,500 Learning Support and Resource Teacher posts in mainstream primary and post primary schools for the 2016/2017 school year of which 7430 are Resource Teaching posts. This represents an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers which have been allocated since the 2011/12 school year, at which point 5265 posts were allocated. In addition, over 5000 learning support posts have been allocated to schools under the General Allocation Model for primary schools and Learning Support allocations for post primary schools.
On 18th January last, I announced that a new model for allocating Special Education Teaching Resources to mainstream primary and post primary schools will be introduced from September 2017.
The aim of this new model is to deliver better outcomes for children with special educational needs. Large amounts of research, analysis, consultation with service users and stakeholders, and piloting have gone in to the development of this model and all the evidence points to the fact that this new system will deliver better outcomes for children.
I also announced that an additional 900 teaching posts will be provided to support the introduction of this new allocation model. The provision of an additional 900 teaching posts is a very significant investment in the provision of additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs in our schools.
The additional funding will provide additional supports to over 1000 schools who are identified as needing additional supports as a result of the new model. Supports for children with special educational needs is a huge priority for this Government. We currently spend €1.6 billion, or one fifth of the total education budget, on supports for children with special educational needs.
Additional provision also continues to be made for special class and special school placements.
There are currently 1,153 Special Classes in place, in comparison to 548 in 2011, with approximately 150 new classes having been made available for the current school year. 125 special schools also provide specialist education for those pupils who need it, from infants to eighteen years of age.
In recent years, the NCSE has provided my Department with a number of policy advice papers on the provision of supports for children with special needs, all of which are available on the NCSE’s website.
It is intended to bring into effect many improvements to the provision of special educational needs support, through policy developments across a range of areas, in conjunction with NCSE policy advice.
I can confirm that this Government will continue to ensure that the supports required, to ensure that all children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education, will be provided.