Mr. Colm Kelly:

I neglected to answer a question put to me by Senator Byrne earlier. My wife is a special educational needs co-ordinator and a teacher in a greenfield site in Dublin. As a matter of course in her role, she engages in individual planning for students. The individual planning in which she engages for her students is not consistent, however, with the individual education plans set out in the EPSEN Act, yet she does it and her colleagues do it. Our members in schools all over the country plan for individual students.

The TUI represents members delivering in Youthreach centres. Up to 20 Youthreach centres receive supplementary funding from the special educational needs initiative to implement individual learning plans, ILPs. We are used to acronyms in the TUI, which itself is an acronym. The individual learning plan tracks a student’s progress and sets out a plan of education for a student through second chance education. Our members engage in that in 20 Youthreach centres because they are resourced for it but not in the others, which are not.

The concept of the individual education plan, as set out in the EPSEN Act, is 15 years old. Educational theory, philosophy and practices have come a long way since the EPSEN Act was drafted.

Senator Byrne asked what we would suggest instead. Right now we do not know. Our members, however, are already working on this. Our members are in schools tracking students and supporting them. They are coming up with innovative ways of differentiating for those students. Our members have a wealth of knowledge that we can offer to the National Council for Special Education, NCSE. It is to our regret that the Minister did not see fit to put any of our representatives on to the NCSE in the last round of invitations for seats on the NCSE. Nonetheless, we are available to the Department, to the NCSE and to the other stakeholders to discuss alternatives to the EPSEN Act that would be more forward thinking than simply implementing a 15 year old Act.

Senator Gavan asked about continuing professional development, CPD. I will relate my wife's experience and what she utilises when planning for these students. Teachers are by their nature life-long learners and my wife has amended her practice over the past five years as she has continued to learn as a teacher. My wife has a basis on which to build, namely, a postgraduate diploma in special education that she received from the Church of Ireland College of Education, which is now in DCU. As my colleague from the ASTI mentioned, these are postgraduate diploma level 9 courses. They are intense courses. Deputy Funchion and I did a level 9 course together some years ago in employment law. It took up a vast amount of our time that year. These courses are intense with regard to time and costs.

After completing one's free education and getting an undergraduate degree, to become a teacher a person now has to engage in a two-year postgraduate diploma in education. This costs our members in excess of €10,000 and two years of their lives. Following that, when they start teaching, and in order to undertake the postgraduate diploma in special education, it is another added cost of at least €5,000 per year. It is also a cost with regard to their time, at a time in their lives when they are trying to save for houses and settle down and start families. Something needs to be done to address the availability of that training, the funding for it and the time made available.

At the point at which my wife received that particular allowance some ten years ago, there was a financial benefit to her, which was recognised as a qualification allowance by the Department of Education and Skills in its business case to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in 2012. This fundamentally was a misnomer of what that special educational needs allowance was for. While it was only available to persons who had undertaken the qualification in special educational needs, in order to retain the allowance there was a requirement on the person to be engaged in the delivery of education to students with special educational needs directly within his or her school for a minimum of five years and to participate in the planning and delivery of that education. It was a complete misnomer on the part of the Departments of Education and Skills and Public Expenditure and Reform to see it solely as a qualification allowance. That allowance was available to people to do the kind of work we are talking about today, and it was withdrawn in 2012. The Department and the committee must give this point some serious consideration.