Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

My Department's circular has set out details of the new model for allocating special education teachers to schools. The new special education teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for schools, based on each school’s educational profile. No school, including the school to which the Deputy has referred, will lose supports as a result of the implementation of the new model. An additional 900 teaching posts have been provided to support the introduction of the new model. There has been a progressive improvement in resource teaching over the years since 2011.

The school referred to by the Deputy in his question had a general allocation of 50 hours - that is the general allocation model, GAM, element for 2016 to 2017. This, combined with 30.18 resource teaching hours allocated to the school by the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, for children with complex needs, gave a total allocation of 80.18 additional teaching hours for 2016 to 2017. As the profiled allocation for this school did not indicate an increased allocation requirement for the school in 2017 to 2018, the school maintained its existing level of allocation. The special education teaching allocation for this school is 80.18 hours for the coming year. There has therefore been no reduction to the special education teaching allocation for this school as a result of the introduction of the model. The NCSE has announced the commencement of an independent appeal process through which schools may appeal the allocation made to their school if they believe the data upon which the allocation is based is incorrect or has been incorrectly used.

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