Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 18 May 2017
116. Deputy John Brassil asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will amend his Department's decision to refuse the EAL teacher post appeal for a school (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23717/17]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe criteria used for the allocation of teachers to primary schools is published annually on the website of the Department of Education and Skills. The key factor for determining the level of staffing resources provided at individual school level is the staffing schedule for the relevant school year and pupil enrolments on the previous 30 September. The staffing arrangements for the 2017/18 school year (Circular 0017/2017) were published recently.
The staffing schedule operates in a clear and transparent manner and treats all similar types of schools equally irrespective of location.
The staffing schedule includes an appeals mechanism for schools to submit an appeal under certain criteria to an independent Appeals Board. Details of the criteria for appeal are contained in the staffing schedule, Circular 0017/2017.
The school referred to by the Deputy submitted an appeal for consideration by the Appeals Board for the April 2017 meeting of the board under the EAL criteria. The Appeals Board determined that this appeal was unsuccessful. The school has been notified accordingly. The Appeal Board operates independently of the Minister and the Department and its decision is final.
My Department's Circulars 0013/2017 and 0014/2017 set out details of the new model for allocating special education teachers to schools.
The new Special Education Teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for schools, based on each school’s educational profile.
No school, including the school to which the Deputy has referred, will lose supports as a result of the implementation of the new model.
An additional 900 teaching posts have been provided to support the introduction of this new allocation model. This represents a very significant investment in the provision of additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs. This is additional to an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers allocated to schools annually by the NCSE since 2011.
In relation to the school referred to by the Deputy in his question, this school had a General Allocation Model allocation of 40 hours for the 2016/17 school year, which combined with 33.15 resource teaching hours allocated to the school by the National Council for Special Education, gave a total allocation of 73.15 additional teaching hours for the 2016/17 school year.
As the profiled allocation for this school did not indicate an increased allocation requirement for the school for 2017/18, the school has maintained its existing level of allocation.
The special education teaching allocation for this school for 2017/18 is 73.15 hours.
There has therefore been no reduction to the special education teaching allocation for this school as a result of the introduction of the new allocation model.
The NCSE has announced the commencement of an independent appeals process through which schools may appeal the allocation made to their school if they believe the data upon which the allocation is based is incorrect or has been incorrectly used.
