Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

Education Needs of Visually Impaired Students: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. Brendan Doody:

On data collection, we are conscious of the State's investment in the area of special education. As I stated, €2.7 billion is going into special education. We must be able to show outcomes in that regard and, for that reason, we have established an outcomes working group in the Department. It is going to be a fairly substantial piece of work which will enable us to in some way determine that, for this level of investment, a certain level of return is being achieved. We hope and intend to work with the educational sector to provide the schools with the wherewithal to capture data related to outcomes. There is an enormous piece of work in determining what we mean by outcomes because for some it is literacy, numeracy and attendance, whereas for others the measure might be very different.

The best way to deal with the question about new school builds is to describe my experience of visiting a brand-new school 25 years ago. The school is in north County Dublin and at the time was the envy of everybody in the area. Everybody was delighted with the new school building. I was in the inspectorate at the time and I went into the school building. The principal said to me that the builders were gone but there was a problem because one of the children in the school had a visual impairment. It was an unusual structure. The child with the visual impairment could walk straight out the door and onto the road. There was no barrier there. That is the very opposite of what is done these days. That was a complete lack of universal design. The principles of universal design now underpin our approach to building and to the development of buildings and new builds. The first thing that the architects in the Department ask is how to develop and construct a building so it meets everybody's need.

The Senator also asked about visiting teachers and I have information in that regard if it is required.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.