Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire
Ceist:182. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of employing ten new resource teachers. [51323/19]
Amharc ar fhreagraTuesday, 10 December 2019
Ceisteanna (182)
Freagraí scríofa
I wish to advise the Deputy that a new model for allocating special education teachers was introduced for mainstream schools from September 2017.
The new Special Education Teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on that school’s educational profile.
What were previously referred to as Resource Teachers, and Learning Support Teachers, have now been incorporated into a single Special Education Teacher post.
The estimated salary cost for the employment of a Special Education Teacher, on a full-time basis, would be an average salary cost of €60,000 per annum. The estimated cost of employing ten new Special Education Teachers would therefore be approximately €600,000 per annum.
It should be noted that there are currently over 13,500 special education teacher posts allocated to mainstream primary and post primary schools.
The total number of Special Education Teachers has increased by 38% since 2011, from 9,740 in 2011, to over 13,500 at present.
Budget 2020 also provided for an additional 120 special education teacher posts, which means that 13,620 Special Education Teaching posts will be available for allocation to mainstream primary and post primary schools by the end of 2020.