Léim ar aghaidh chuig an bpríomhábhar
Gnáthamharc

Special Educational Needs

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 September 2020

Tuesday, 8 September 2020

Ceisteanna (34)

Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire

Ceist:

34. Deputy Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire asked the Minister for Children, Disability, Equality and Integration the steps being taken to re-engage students with education including students with special educational needs and other vulnerable categories; and if there will be increased investment in home school community liaison officers and school completion programmes to help ease this transition back to school buildings. [19305/20]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (6 píosaí cainte)

This question is peculiar in that I submitted it to the Minister for Education and Skills and it was referred to the Minister present but were I to submit it to him in a few weeks' time, it would be transferred across to the Department of Education and Skills.

The primary concerns involved are educational and I have listened to a lot of discussion on very legitimate concerns about the application of the 20 day rule where there is illness, as raised by Deputy Funchion and others, and it is right and valid. I also have a concern at the other end of the equation. Tusla has a difficult job to do to try to keep an eye on it but there is the danger that in the midst of all this there will be children who become disengaged with education and with whom contact will be lost. I am looking for an update on this.

Research the Department has undertaken on the Covid-19 pandemic has shown the risk of a particular impact on students from disadvantaged backgrounds and students with special educational needs. This is one of the reasons I have been very committed as part of the Government to the reopening of schools generally.

As the Deputy knows, the Tusla Education Support Service, TESS, operates under the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 and has an emphasis on the promotion of school attendance, participation and retention. TESS has three strands, namely the educational welfare service, the home school community liaison scheme and the school completion programme. All three of these are working at present and Tusla has been engaging on this point to ensure engagement with all students, in particular students with those additional needs, so they are brought back into education.

As we discussed in debate on earlier questions, to ensure this is happening we have the special September return being made by all schools to indicate whether students have returned after the extensive gap forced on them by Covid. TESS staff will examine these returns to see whether particular issues need to be addressed.

TESS has planned a universal response to support the return to school for all students and has reorganised the focus and capacity of the service to achieve this, including by temporarily seconding additional support staff from other areas of Tusla to support the initiative.

The 122 school completion projects are funded in line with the academic term and approximately €24.7 million is provided to them each year.

The home school community liaison scheme is supported by the Department of Education and Skills and falls directly within the remit of the Minister for Education and Skills.

This section is on the way out of the Minister's Department and perhaps he will give us a timescale on it because I am not sure. In the meantime, the Minister has an opportunity to shape it. I have a view that there is a cohort of students who could and should have benefited from access to the school completion programme and particularly from access to the home school liaison scheme in recent years but have not done so because there has been no expansion of DEIS band 2 for more than ten years. An awful lot of schools would have qualified for it and many children could have benefited from the home school liaison scheme and the school completion programme. There was no real movement on DEIS in recent years. This is a crossover area and the Minister should engage with the Minister for Education and Skills to lobby for a review of DEIS with a view to expanding the number of people who can avail of these two schemes in particular.

Will the Minister also come back to me on redeployment? What staff are being redeployed and what work are they doing now that they have been redeployed? I presume the home school liaison teachers are still attached to schools and they are not being redeployed.

In case there is any confusion about redeployment, the idea is that Tusla staff from other areas would be redeployed to support this particular project, particularly in September, to make sure young people come back to school. It is about resources coming in rather than resources going out.

On the transfer of functions, we are talking about a number of weeks. I can get back to the Deputy on this. We are looking at a number of weeks with regard to when the TESS function will be moved to the Department of Education and Skills.

With regard to DEIS schools, I have been the chair of the board of management of a DEIS school for the past three years. As it happens, our home school community liaison officer is also the staff representative on the board and we have had a real insight into the work she does, particularly advancing elements of our DEIS plan, which looks at issues such as attendance. I am fully supportive of the idea of expanding DEIS access throughout the country.

I understood the point on redeployment. Is it with regard to this particular return exercise that is being worked on? Perhaps it is additional work. In general, I am in favour of the expansion of the home school liaison scheme and school completion programme. The expansion of DEIS to another cohort of schools is an important part of this, not just DEIS band 1, which is important, but also DEIS band 2.

Some of the very important work done by school completion officers includes breakfast clubs. From the Department's point of view is it full steam ahead? Can breakfast clubs and other such activity resume? Have they resumed?

My understanding is that in terms of breakfast clubs and the use of school facilities, there is no barrier to doing this so long as public health guidelines are fully followed. I might touch base with the Deputy on this again so I have a completely clear answer for him.

Question No. 35 replied to with Written Answers.
Barr
Roinn