Ms Breda Corr:

While I have to hand a long presentation, I will not go into it now but will simply state that although we welcome many of the suggested changes, we are deeply concerned by the manner in which it does not take into account many of the necessary practices and requirements of boards catering for children with special educational needs. Our statement has approximately 14 points and I will go through them rapidly. On the statement of non-discrimination and special schools accepting only certain types of pupils, the NCSE recommends that special schools and units should cater for pupils with particular types of need.

In order to maximise resources, that should continue to be allowed. However, we recognise that regulation 24 might be a mitigating factor in this regard but only in respect of special schools and units. It needs to be expanded to cover mainstream schools with children with special educational needs.

There is a further difficulty with regulation 22 in so far as it refers to the assessment of students. We can only presume this regulation applies where the test is carried out by the school in the absence of an independent psychologist's report. Special schools and units must rely on the latter as part of their admissions process.

We have questions about the role of the patron. Many of our patron bodies are outside the denominational sector and many admissions policies largely depend on the focus of the special need.

The position on transfer policies is not clear. Clarity is needed on what is required of the policies that do not relate to the intake group.

Another question that arises is whether the NCSE and NEWB must respect the transfer and admission policies of a school on which they propose to impose a child. If they were permitted to transfer students into a school in circumstances where the criteria laid down in the policies were not met, it would be unjust to all applicants who are refused places due to oversubscription, or otherwise.

The draft scheme is an opportunity for the Oireachtas to legislate for the increasingly common question as to how to deal with a student whose special needs now exceed the ability of the school to cater for him.

We have questions on catchment areas, because this issue applies to special schools and units. The timeframe for accepting admissions to special schools and units is intertwined with the NCSE timeframe for the allocation of resources. We strongly advocate that provision for these interlinked processes be required in admissions policies under the draft head.

It is of great concern to our members that there is confusion over the assessments of pupils' needs and the engagement with parents as part of the admissions process. Many special schools and units use interviews as an integral part of the admissions process to ensure that the child would benefit from the specific services. We, too, are alarmed by the repeal of section 29 of the Education Act. If the Minister introduced a more transparent, coherent model for the existing process, it could increase certainty for schools and parents and reduce costs and confusion. I alluded to the only two ways in which people may make an appeal.

With regard to the expanded role of the principal, we are concerned because some schools require expertise in educational, medical and psychological fields that necessitates the obtaining of external advice during the process. While the board retains the final decision, many schools use advisory panels or sub-committees to assist in the process of ranking applications. Obviously, the principal could no longer be involved in the sub-committee.

My next few points are quite important. We view the proposed NEWB-NCSE powers to require a school to take a pupil in as an inappropriate stripping of a board of management’s authority and power to run its school. While the NCSE must take account of the capacity of the school to accommodate the child, the scheme does not give any further guidance on this decision-making process. The NCSE could consider a school’s capacity and decide that the need of the child to enter the school outweighs the needs of the school to cater for its existing pupils. It should be noted that the NCSE does not appear to have any power to take into account the impact of such forced enrolment on other children in the school.

On the NCSE's powers to recommend that additional resources be made available to the school, it may direct a school to take a child but the additional resources might never become available.

The powers of the Garda and HSE are problematic and unworkable in practice.

We note that the role of the SENO in school admissions requires statutory clarification, both in the current regime and particularly in light of the changes in the draft scheme. Given the proposed enlarged power of the NCSE, the role of the SENO in admissions needs very clear definition. The scheme needs to state explicitly what the actual role of a SENO will be in the admissions process and the extent to which schools can maintain their autonomy in applying their admissions policy in the face of a particular SENO's recommendation.

With regard to the development of joint enrolment, we suggest that the drafting of this legislation represents an opportunity to clearly define the process of joint enrolment, whether in a mainstream and special school or in two different special schools. We strongly recommend that legal guidance be set down in determining practical issues, such as where the capitation grant should go and how it should be split and how and where the child should be formally enrolled. Joint enrolment is of great assistance to many children in transitioning out of special schools and can be an effective method of fulfilling the mainstreaming objective in the EPSEN Act.

We thank the members for giving us the opportunity to make this presentation and demonstrate the complications and complexities of the proposed legislation in the context of special education.