John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is not difficult to agree with much of what the Deputy has said. There are three points to make. Inclusive education is a mandatory element of the initial teacher education programme, and research has been carried out on inclusive education in initial teacher education by the NCSE which recently published a report entitled Initial Teacher Education for Inclusion. Phases 1 and 2 of the report found that there is in general much good practice in schools around their attitude to inclusion while also noting that there is scope for further alignment between theory and practice, in particular as between the student placement and the university experience. The third point is that the Teaching Council is carrying out a review of the impact of the current programmes with a view to amending the criteria the Deputy spoke about and guidelines before the next round of accreditation commences in 2020.

In the meantime, the Department provides a range of in-service professional developing supports to teachers. The Deputy may not be aware of this but they have been in place since March 2017. The NCSE support service has a remit to develop schools' capacity to include students with special educational needs to promote educational provision. The review is of all the criteria we have spoken about. That will be completed before the next round of accreditation.

Without condescending to the Deputy, I know she has been a great advocate for people with special needs all her life, and I would be delighted to keep her updated on the review as the Department is updated every fortnight, I think.

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