Mr. John Kearney:

I wish to thank the committee for the kind invitation to be here today, representing the National Council for Special Education. The NCSE was established over 20 years ago to improve the delivery of education services to persons with special educational needs arising from disabilities, with a particular emphasis on young children. In the last decade, a significant and exponential growth in activity in special educational needs has resulted in an 81% increase in special needs assistants, a 40% increase in special education teachers and a five-fold increase in the number of special classes, as well as a doubling of applications for transport and assistive technology. The last decade alone has seen equally phenomenal growth, with 16 new special schools established, almost 1,700 new special classes being delivered and more than 30,500 children in special education placements for the coming academic year, bringing it to a total of 3,700 special classes for this year. Three years ago, governmental support of an enhanced budget of €13.8 million enabled the NCSE to commence a programme of organisational transformation and recruitment, resulting in an expansion of staffing from approximately 265 to 410 to cater for the accelerated growth in special education provision.

The NCSE has a vision of a world-class, inclusive education system for Ireland, where children, young people and adults with special educational needs are supported to achieve better outcomes in their education and are enabled to reach their full and true potential. The NCSE supports schools to enable students with additional needs to develop skills for life so they can participate meaningfully and to their fullest potential in society. The restructuring of the NCSE has effectively enabled the organisation to deliver a multidisciplinary, integrated national programme of teacher professional learning and direct student support.

In the last decade or so, the NCSE has provided six policy advice publications to the Ministers for education across a whole range of areas relevant to the provision of special education. The most recent policy advice on an inclusive education for an inclusive society was presented early last year and was prepared following an extensive period of research, consultation and deliberation undertaken by the NCSE. Great care was taken to establish a strong evidence base to inform this policy advice and involved consultations, school visits and a multi-strand programme of research and deliberation.

There are already exceptionally inclusive practices occurring in our schools right across the country that provide supportive and nurturing learning environments for students. Schools are using innovative approaches to teaching and learning, tailoring interventions to meet students’ needs, and accessing specialist support to ensure that all students have access to the curriculum and achieve their full potential.

Special needs assistants are critical to school inclusive practices and the NCSE commends and celebrates these best practices and seeks to embed them across the entire education system. Recruiting and retaining qualified and competent staff is vital to ensuring a well-resourced and sustainable special needs workforce. It also supports continuity and consistency of service, which is critical to the successful inclusion of students with additional special educational needs in mainstream classes, special schools and special classes.

Last year saw the introduction of Circular 80/24, which enabled the NCSE to have a greater overview of specialist demand at both special class and special school levels. The NCSE established the parents notify system and NCSE special educational needs organisers, SENOs, and team managers worked closely with school leaders, school boards of management and school patrons to establish, with quicker timelines, over 400 sanctioned classes for the Easter period. The NCSE is also supporting the establishment of five new schools in Dublin, Monaghan, Tipperary and Cork. A school circular last May afforded the opportunity of providing strengthened delivery for pupils, parents and schools. All of these measures have greatly assisted the proactive recruitment of special needs assistants.

In addition to the SENO service, the NCSE provides a professional learning programme to all schools nationwide. This programme includes the delivery of seminars, webinars and in-school bespoke training to teachers and whole-school communities. A productive inspector to adviser delivery memorandum of understanding has been established with the inspectorate to enrich inspectorate interdisciplinary report reviews and school-based practices. The NCSE has facilitated the first national special needs assistants training course, developed in collaboration with the school of education in University College Dublin and currently being by delivered by St. Angela's College, Sligo, a college of the Atlantic Technological University. This course has provided training to close to 3,500 special needs assistants in our schools and has assisted our wonderful special needs assistants around the country to have a greater understanding of their students’ strengths and needs.

The Minister for Education and Youth, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister of State for special education and inclusion, Deputy Moynihan, recently published the 2025 education plan. This comprehensive plan outlines an ambition to deliver a world-class education system for Ireland that breaks down barriers and ensures every child can achieve his or her full and true potential. Tying in with the launch of this education plan was the announcement of the SNA redeployment scheme, currently in development, which will further boost SNA recruitment and retention within our schools. The SNA scheme will also increase job security for SNAs and ensure competent and experienced SNAs are retained in our schools.

The NCSE warmly welcomes the opportunity to assist the Joint Committee on Education and Youth on important matters relating to supporting special needs assistant recruitment and retention.