Mr. Jim Mulkerrins:

The Deputy raised a number of issues and asked me to respond in general to the points made by Mr. Harris. I would be happy to do so. I will begin by making a couple of technical points. The petition relates to the experiences of children with spectrum disorders. It does not refer specifically to autism. I do not want to get into the personal details of the petitioner's child. Our comments have a broader focus than autism. I acknowledge that autism is the avenue we are likely to follow because it accounts for the overwhelming majority of children with spectrum disorders within schools. I am of the view that we can agree on this.

I acknowledge Mr. Harris's point about AsIAm being inundated with requests for training. I welcome that level of demand, to be frank, because it speaks to the willingness of the teaching profession to seek out and access opportunities for learning. The experience I would like to outline speaks enormously about the value of what has been traditionally been referred to as CPD.

Mr. Harris pointed to the NCSE's recommendation on mandatory training for teachers teaching children with autism. In 2013 and 2015, the NCSE recommended that there should be mandatory CPD. In that context, work is under way at the moment both within the Teaching Council, the NCSE, and collaboratively between the two, to develop the framework for CPD. We would all agree that it would not be very effective for the Department to simply issue a circular from next Monday or 1 September saying it would be mandatory for teachers to undertake training on autism. One has to develop the training and ensure the training is appropriate, recognises the needs and contexts of children and also that it is capable of being translated into better practice within the school. One then needs a framework for the evaluation of that. Otherwise, it would be meaningless as well. We fully acknowledge that there is work to be done in that regard. The Department's concern is that before we get into the space of deciding that there should be a mandatory component on CPD that we would have the evidence base to underpin the decision and that is just not there yet, but work is under way.

I also acknowledge the point made by Mr. Harris that Dr. Finn Ó Murchú, head of education in Mary Immaculate College on the St. Patrick's Campus in Thurles has introduced autism in the initial teacher education training courses. That is one good example of practice. Dr. Ó Murchú has a background in working with the special education section of the Department and continues to inform it of best practice in this area. He also had a significant engagement with the Middletown Centre for Autism. There is a wealth of inter-agency activity, engagement and consultation happening in this space.

I wish to make a broader point, namely, that we have probably come from a difficult enough period perhaps 15 or 20 years ago when there was little in the way of additional provision and inclusion was not the language of the education system. In a very short period, the level of resources provided to support the inclusion of children in education has increased exponentially . During my time in the area of special education, the entire budget has increased from approximately €880 million to €1.8 billion. Such was the commitment of the Government and the Department to support children's education, and specifically the education of children with special educational needs, that it was done over the ten years of the worst economic depression that the country has ever experienced. That has seen a significant increase in the number of additional teachers to support special education. We are now at in excess of 15,000 teachers and we just reached 16,000 SNAs from a very low base in the mid-1990s of approximately 300. Approximately one third of the adult population within schools is specifically related now to special education, particularly when one adds in the number of teachers teaching special classes and the number of teachers who teach in special schools. The investment is significant. That has encouraged a significant increase in the number of children who are being included. We are working at breakneck pace to try to ensure that those teachers are supported in order to ensure that there is best practice within schools.

We acknowledge that at a time of substantial change there will always be examples where one will find that the best things are not necessarily happening or where decisions within schools are not necessarily the best decisions in the context of, for example, the assignment of teachers to special classes or the assignment of teachers with special needs responsibilities. It is around those concerns that the NCSE has made most of its recommendations on training and qualification structures. The recommendations are now being actively interrogated in the context of the consultation and development work that the NCSE and the Teaching Council are doing. The Teaching Council's exercise, which I referred to in my opening remarks, on engagement with the teaching profession has satisfied it and we in the Department are convinced that there is a ready openness on the part of the teachers to engage. There is openness and willingness to engage in professional learning, including the formal and informal conversations in the schools and within the training opportunities that are provided, both by the NCSE and the Teaching Council through the education centres and all of the other training opportunities that are available, including Mr. Harris's organisation, AsIAm. The willingness to engage in training and the positivity towards it is what we are trying to identify better and to base the future on rather than simply engaging in a box-ticking exercise. I use the words somewhat advisedly because in preparing for the meeting we looked at where there is evidence of a mandatory CPD programme. Since the introduction of its mandatory programme in 2011, the Medical Council has published a report indicating that in many respects the mandatory CPD programme for doctors is regarded as a point of contention, a box-ticking exercise and does not speak to a quality of provision.

In terms of ensuring that it translates properly into schools, the Department is currently examining the Looking at our School document, which we use to ensure that schools are self-reflective in terms of their practice , that they are understanding of all of the different contexts within their schools - for example, that assignments are conducted appropriately - and that leadership and school management are conducted appropriately. That document speaks significantly about the inclusion of children with special educational needs and other diversity issues, including for example, disadvantage. We are currently reviewing that and we are conscious that there is an opportunity to bring all of our service providers, the PDST and the NIPT, which are responsible for induction training of teachers, and the JCT and the NCSE, together to ensure that there is coherence between development work and how that translates into best practice within schools. As members are aware, the inspectorate is a mechanism through which we look to see how schools are being effective in terms of practice. In the context of whole-school evaluations, inspectors will typically look at what the schools are doing in respect of the implementation of all that good stuff in the Looking at Our School document. There is a lot happening.