Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for raising this issue as it gives me an opportunity to clarify the position on behalf of the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Ruairí Quinn. While I acknowledge the point made by Deputy Joan Collins regarding the presence of the senior Minister, it should be noted that I am a Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills.

The Government has maintained the €1.3 billion of annual funding for additional teaching resources and special needs assistants, SNAs, to support children with special educational needs at a time when there is a requirement to make expenditure savings across a range of areas. As the Tánaiste outlined to the House this morning, two out of every five adults working in our schools are solely dedicated to catering for the needs of children with special educational needs. We have no doubt about the value of the service that these staff provide and the value children and their parents derive from it. However, we are not in a position to dramatically increase the number of special needs assistants or any other service for reasons of which everyone is aware.

No one can doubt the Government's commitment to special education. We have maintained the number of resource teachers and special needs assistants in the system since coming into office, despite enormous budgetary pressures in education and every other front-line service. That said, as a public representative, I am acutely aware of the concerns that have been expressed by parents and teachers in the media in the last 48 hours. We need to be clear in all debates, both in this House and elsewhere, about what these changes mean to ensure we avoid creating any unnecessary distress or alarm.

The provision for SNA support for the next school year will remain at exactly the same level as the provision for the current school year. In its announcement the National Council for Special Education pointed to an increase in demand for resource teaching posts of the order of slightly more than 10%. Deputies will be aware that children with learning support and special educational needs are supported through learning support provision and NCSE-allocated resource teachers. In primary schools, learning support is provided through the general allocation model and similar direct provision is made in post-primary schools. These supports have been maintained for this year.

The year-on-year growth in the overall student population is approximately 1.3%. This year, the demand for additional resource teachers from the NCSE has grown by more than 10%. While the NCSE is not yet in a position to provide a clear analysis of the underlying reasons for the very large increase in demand this year, it is clear that some of this increased demand arises from the migration of students from learning support provision to NCSE-allocated resource teacher support. This has created a significant additional pressure on the resources available to the NCSE. However, it should also have reduced, by equal measure, the pressure on the learning support resources already allocated to schools.

Schools are encouraged to make maximum use of their resource and learning support teaching allocations through appropriate grouping and pairing of children, as appropriate, to ensure children do not lose out on teaching time. This is a vital point for parents to hear because an increase in the use of more collaborative, team-based approaches to teaching can help ensure that no child will face a significant reduction in the amount of time spent with his or her resource teacher.

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