Seán Power (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to have been given the opportunity by Deputies O'Sullivan and Costello to clarify the position of the Department of Education and Science in respect of the new general allocation system. The general allocation of learning support or resource teachers is intended to cater for children with learning support and high incidence special educational needs. The system was constructed so that learning support or resource teacher allocations would be based on pupil numbers, taking into account the differing needs of the most disadvantaged schools and the evidence that boys have greater difficulties than girls in this regard.

The new system has a number of benefits associated with it: it puts resources in place on a more systematic basis, thereby giving schools more certainty about their resource levels; it facilitates early intervention as the resource is in place when the child enrols; it reduces the need for individual applications and supporting psychological assessments; and it allows flexibility to school management in the deployment of resources, leading to a more effective and efficient delivery of services.

In introducing the general allocation system, transitional arrangements were also introduced whereby transitional hours were allocated to schools to cater for children for whom individual teaching resources had previously been allocated, but which it would not have been possible for the school to continue to provide from its general allocation. In the circumstances, no child should have experienced a loss of resource teaching support.

It has always been the case that schools in receipt of resource teacher support in respect of pupils with special educational needs would lose teacher support, either full posts or part-time hours, when the pupils that triggered the extra support left the school.

In the circumstances, the Department of Education and Science has no plans to change the current mechanism of allocating teaching resources to schools to support pupils with special educational needs. It is intended that a review of the general allocation model will be undertaken within three years of operation. The Department is satisfied that at this stage, the general allocation system is working well and has been favourably received by schools. The Department will continue to work with schools and the education partners with a view to ensuring that this remains the case in the future.

There are now more than 5,000 teachers in our primary schools working directly with children with special needs, including those requiring learning support. This compares with fewer than 1,500 in 1998. One out of every five primary school teachers is now working specifically with children with special needs.

The Department of Education and Science has recently issued a comprehensive circular to all primary schools regarding the organisation of teaching resources for pupils who need additional support in mainstream primary schools. The main purpose of this circular is to provide guidance for schools on the deployment and organisation of the teaching resources allocated under the general allocation model. This circular also refers to the deployment of additional teaching resources that are allocated to schools for the support of individual pupils with low incidence disabilities.

The Deputies may be aware that the Department has introduced a new action plan for educational inclusion, DEIS, that is, delivering equality of opportunity in schools, which aims to ensure that the educational needs of children and young people, from pre-school to completion of upper second level education, that is, from three to 18 years, from disadvantaged communities are prioritised and effectively addressed. The new plan is the outcome of the first full review of all programmes for tackling educational disadvantage that have been put in place over the past 20 years and it will involve an additional annual investment of some €40 million on full implementation. It will also involve the creation of approximately 300 additional posts across the education system generally. A key element of this new action plan is the implementation of a standardised system for identifying levels of disadvantage in our primary and second level schools, which will result in improved targeting of resources at those most in need. The identification and analysis processes are being managed by the Educational Research Centre on behalf of the Department of Education and Science. As a result of the identification process, approximately 600 primary schools, comprising 300 urban-town, 300 rural and 150 second level schools, will be included in a new school support programme. The programme will bring together and build upon a number of existing interventions for schools and school clusters-communities with a concentrated level of educational disadvantage. Officials in the Department anticipate that they will be in a position to notify participating schools in time for the next school year regarding the outcome of the ongoing identification process. I thank the Deputies once again for affording me the opportunity to clarify the position regarding the general allocation system.

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