John Moloney (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The list of acceptable qualifications for home tuition providers has not been changed. The Deputy will be aware that the home tuition scheme provides funding to parents to provide education at home for children who, for a number of reasons such as chronic illness, are unable to attend school. The scheme was extended in recent years to facilitate tuition for children awaiting a suitable educational placement and also to provide early educational intervention for preschool children with autism. The home-based July provision scheme provides funding for an extended school year for children with autism or a severe or profound general learning disability. The scheme is intended to provide education appropriate to the child's educational needs.

The Deputy will also appreciate that as home tuition takes place outside of the normal school framework, there is need to ensure that tuition providers are qualified to give education to the children concerned. It is reasonable to expect that a person, providing an education to a child in the child's home outside of the normal school structure, is fully qualified.

Some parents had advised of difficulties in sourcing fully qualified teachers. The Department therefore has allowed for other qualifications. However, the guidelines to the scheme have in recent years advised of my Department's preference for a fully qualified teacher. In this school year, the home tuition, and more recently the July provision, application forms were amended in format and additional text was added to clearly state the Department's preference for a fully qualified teacher.

I wish to assure the Deputy that my Department has continued to sanction alternative tuition providers where parents have shown that they were unable to source a fully qualified teacher.

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