Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 53 and 72 together.

The number of children within the primary education system is in the region of 446,000 pupils and increasing. Arising from the census of special needs provision undertaken by my Department towards the end of 2003, there were 4,527 pupils within the mild general learning disability range, and 2,450 within the borderline mild general learning disability range. In general, this pupil cohort would be eligible for resource teaching support. The census was undertaken in 2003 to ensure that up to date information on children with special educational needs was available to the Department. The establishment of the National Council for Special Education will be of great assistance in ensuring that such information is available on an ongoing basis in the future.

The scale of resource allocation in recent years has facilitated the provision of education for children with special needs, including those with mild or borderline mild general learning disabilities, in mainly mainstream national schools. However, education for children with special educational needs is provided in a variety of settings. For children for whom mainstream provision is not appropriate, placement may be made in one of the 30 special schools and the 289 special classes catering for pupils with mild general learning disability located throughout the country. These classes have a pupil teacher ratio of 11:1.

In 1998, the Government took a decision that has transformed the level of provision for pupils with special educational needs, including those with mild and borderline mild general learning disabilities. Pupils with such needs would be entitled to an automatic response to meet those needs and the allocation of resources to meet those needs no longer depended, as it had in the past, on the limited resources that were available to meet those needs.

In light of the reality that pupils in the high incidence disability categories of mild and borderline mild general learning disability and dyslexia are distributed throughout the education system, my Department, in consultation with educational interests aims to introduce a general allocation model. It is hoped to have an outcome in the next few weeks.

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