Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Tá an-áthas orm an deis a bheith agam inniu tabhairt faoi réimse fíorthábhachtach an oideachais speisialta. Tá an-áthas orm é sin a dhéanamh i mo ról nua mar Aire Stáit le freagairt as oideachas speisialta agus cuimsiú. I very much welcome the opportunity to address the House this afternoon on the very important issue of special education and inclusion. I was delighted last month to be appointed by our new Taoiseach to the role of Minister of State with responsibility for special education and inclusion.

As a former primary school teacher, I have a huge level of interest in education generally and in how it impacts every day on the lives of children and young people in almost 4,000 schools across the country. As Government Chief Whip, I sit at the Cabinet. In that capacity, I am determined to be a voice for special education and inclusion at the highest level of the Government. I wish to be very clear about our commitment to this area. Enabling children with special educational needs to receive a high-quality education is a priority for the Government. It is also a key priority for the Department of Education and its partners, including the National Council for Special Education, NCSE.

As colleagues will be aware, the Taoiseach has a strong interest in education and disability matters. He has established a new Cabinet committee on children and education and disability, which includes all responsible Departments and Ministers. This development clearly underlines the Government's commitment, and the Taoiseach's personal commitment, to working to improve the lives of children and young people with disabilities and special educational needs. The committee has already met on one occasion and will continue to meet on a regular basis. It will be a key vehicle for considering measures to further improve the lives of our children and young people, particularly those with a disability or special educational need. I look forward to playing a key role in the work of the new committee.

As Dáil Deputies, we are all aware of the contacts made with us by parents and families on behalf of children with special educational needs. Regardless of the issue, we can empathise hugely with a family looking to secure a special education place, access to therapy services or access to respite support. A lot of good work is being done to support children with special educational needs and their families across a wide range of areas. We have increased the number of special education teachers and special needs assistants, SNAs, in our schools. We have overseen a rapid expansion in special class places over the past four years. We have established a number of new special schools. These additional places and supports mean so much to children and their families. However, we must do more. The Government is committed to delivering services and educational opportunities to children and families most in need. I have met with the chief executive and chairperson of the NCSE, which is engaged with delivering and arranging educational provision to children. I will continue to regularly meet and engage with the NCSE to ensure it has the resources it needs to do its important work.

In the short few weeks I have been in my new role, I have also had the opportunity to meet with a number of children and their families, as well as advocacy groups, including the National Parents Council, AsIAm, Inclusion Ireland, Down Syndrome Ireland, Family Carers Ireland, Open Special Schools and Classes, and Neurodiversity Ireland. I want to hear about what works well, what is not working and what we can do to improve provision of services. Of particular note during those meetings was the level of lived experience these groups bring to the discussion. It is important that this lived experience feeds into our policy formation. My Department is committed to ensuring the voice of the student is heard.

The special education consultative forum established by the Government in 2021 is an example of how lived experience is directly incorporated into policy formation. Membership of the forum includes parent and student representatives and advocates from a wide range of groups. Meeting on a regular basis, members are invited to submit agenda items, collaborate and prioritise matters for consideration. The forum covers the special education provision for children of schoolgoing age attending recognised primary, special and post-primary schools. It provides an opportunity for parents and advocates to contribute to the ongoing reform and development of policy and provision across a wide range of areas and to raise concerns in this regard. It is a hugely valuable means of listening to our stakeholders and developing our medium and long-term thinking on how provision of education can be best achieved.

The work being undertaken by my Department to review the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 is another example of how our work is informed by stakeholders. The review process includes extensive stakeholder engagement, including with parents, educators, advocacy groups and experts in special education. We have collected a rich source of data to help inform the next steps. Online surveys launched in November 2022 garnered more than 28,000 responses. Qualitative analysis of hundreds of submissions is under way.

An easy access survey will be also made available shortly. This is designed to accommodate individuals, including students, who may face challenges with traditional survey methods. A variety of focus groups were also held as part of the review, including with children with special educational needs and young adults who had experienced the special educational needs model of education. Later this year, an open policy day will integrate feedback from surveys and focus groups, insights from the academic review and inputs from the National Council for Special Education’s policy advice on special schools and special classes. I want this significant review to be completed by the end of the year, and the feedback coming through the extensive consultation that is underway is sure to focus on the key issues that stakeholders want us to consider as part of any potential review of the legislation.

In recent years, the Government has made significant progress on ensuring that students with special educational needs have the right supports and resources to enable them to achieve their educational goals. It is important to remember that the majority of children with special educational needs are supported to attend mainstream classes with their peers. For children with more complex needs, special class places are provided, and for children with the most complex needs, special school places are provided. Since 2019, more than €9 billion has been spent on special education, with this year alone seeing 26% of the education budget allocated to special educational needs. This investment of €9 billion has allowed seven new special schools and more than 1,300 new special classes to open nationwide in the past five years. It has also allowed for close to another 3,000 special education teachers and over 5,000 special needs assistants to be added to our schools’ resources. This means that there are now more than 40,000 dedicated individuals committed to enabling students with special education needs to attain their educational goals.

Budget 2024 provides for another 400 special classes and 300 additional special school places to be provided for the coming school year. The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, advises my Department that almost 300 new special classes have already been sanctioned, and the remaining classes will be confirmed shortly once final details are worked through at local level. Four further special schools will be opened in the coming school year as well. They are in Enfield in County Meath, Craddockstown in County Kildare, Gorey in County Wexford and Limerick city. A number of existing special schools are also being expanded. My Department continues to engage in forward planning with the NCSE on an ongoing basis and work has already commenced on forward planning for the 2025-26 school year. The Government is committed to continuing to support this accelerated level of delivery of special education places.

It is important to note that we continue to see an increasing need for special education placements, mainly driven by an increase in the prevalence rate of children with autism. My Department has commenced work with other relevant Departments and organisations to try to understand the factors behind this increase.

My time as Minister of State has afforded me the opportunity to meet a host of families and students from many different walks of life, providing me with insights into their educational journeys. The needs of each child are different and it has been helpful for me as Minister of State to hear first hand what supports are needed to ensure that the potential of children can be fully realised through our education system. For example, just yesterday I visited Boyerstown National School in County Meath where I met Willow and Abbie in their rainbow classroom. I spoke with Willow’s mum, Tracy, who explained how Willow had come on in leaps and bounds since starting school. I was also pleased to meet the school principal and the girls’ special teacher, Geraldine, as well as other support staff, who explained how they helped provide inclusive education in a mainstream school. My colleague, Deputy English, has worked closely with the family and school to provide fantastic supports to all children.

One of the biggest challenges I hear about is the difficulty of sourcing the right supports at the right time and in the right place. This is why I am so pleased to today announce details of the additional €13 million of funding that has been provided for the expansion of services within the NCSE. The NCSE plays a pivotal role in planning and co-ordinating school supports for children with special educational needs. The €13 million investment has allowed for a 64% increase in the number of special educational needs organisers, SENOs, who, at a local level, are a pivotal point of contact for parents, guardians and schools to ensure that the educational needs of children are met. As part of the expansion of services, the number of SENOs will increase from 73 to 120. A key part of this change is a move to a more responsive, localised structure in order to offer more concentrated and focused supports. The new structure will be in place for the beginning of the school year next September.

These additional posts for the NCSE are the first step. We must then consider how the NCSE can further work to support parents, particularly in the area of admission to special classes and special schools. This is something I want to consider further with the NCSE, and work is ongoing in that regard.

It would be useful to set out a number of the measures that are underway to enhance the experience of our children and young people in the education system. We want to share the ambition of young people and their families, not just in reaching their full potential in school, but also after they have left the education system to pursue careers or further opportunities in further and higher education. I wish to quickly highlight a number of the measures being progressed.

When I meet parents of children with special educational needs, they are keen to emphasise the importance of having appropriate curricular pathways for their children in our school system, particularly at post-primary level. Building on the junior cycle level 1 and level 2 programmes, the new senior cycle level 1 and level 2 programmes are in development and are particularly targeted at supporting children with additional needs. I wish to see these programmes introduced in our schools as soon as possible, backed by significant training and supports.

Special schools play a critical role in supporting students with the most complex of needs. To support these schools, a package of specific supports has been provided in budget 2024, aimed at increasing provision of post-primary subjects and supporting students to access further education and employment opportunities after school. They include additional funding and the removal of the current teacher threshold for the appointment of administrative deputy principals so that all special schools can benefit from this additional resource. An additional allocation of almost 100 teaching posts targeted at special schools with post-primary-aged students has also been provided.

When I visit schools, I am always struck by the important role that school staff, including SNAs, play in the daily lives of our children and young people. Overall, there are more than 20,000 SNAs supporting students with significant care needs in our education system. In 2022, my Department established a dedicated SNA workforce development unit in order to ensure that sufficient time and attention were given to the examination of the SNA role and to adopt a more strategic approach to policy development. This is aimed at developing an enhanced service that delivers the best outcome for children. Research and analysis have already begun as part of the work on this first SNA workforce development plan. Focus groups on the topic of SNA learning and development have been held with SNAs and a comprehensive national survey of SNAs also issued earlier this year. It is envisaged that the data collected will help to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of the role of the SNA in the different educational settings and to explore and enhance the role that SNAs play in facilitating inclusion.

One of the areas I am particularly interested in is how we support students in transitioning to available further education and employment opportunities after school. We must do more to harness and support the development of the ability present in every single child in our education system. Working with a number of schools, my Department and the NCSE is piloting two interesting programmes. The first of these transition programmes, which involves mainstream and special schools in Dublin and Galway working together on a pilot basis, aims to provide access to all school leavers requiring specialist supports to an appropriate transition programme. The programme is teacher led and is designed to be adaptable to the individual needs of the students it supports. A co-ordinator has been appointed to work with the schools on developing their own approaches based on their students and contexts.

A second pilot - a transition programme funded by the Dormant Accounts Fund - is a collaboration between the Department and the Walkinstown Association for People with an Intellectual Disability, WALK, which is an experienced NGO working in the area of disability services.

WALK is working with ten schools, mostly special schools, to deliver its existing providing equal employment routes, PEER, ability programme. The key objective is similar to the other programme, to ensure that students are supported to make optimal transitions from school and that engagement continues with participants for up to three years after they leave school. Both programmes will be monitored and reviewed on an ongoing basis and I am very interested to see the learnings from these programmes and how we can provide supports in other schools into the future.

We must also look to see how we support children transitioning right through our education system, from preschool to primary, post-primary and beyond, and I look forward to progressing this work with my officials.

Another new initiative being progressed is the Towards Inclusion pilot programme, which is a collaboration between special schools and mainstream schools. The overarching purpose of the programme is to provide for collaboration between mainstream and special schools in teaching, learning and assessment practices. This programme seeks to break down the barriers between specialist and mainstream provision such that it may prompt conversations at local level around inclusion, inclusive practices and opportunities for collaboration. It may also be viewed as a foundation block in work being undertaken to develop an inclusive education system. I am keen to monitor the progress of this pilot programme and see how we can do more in this space with mainstream and special schools in the years ahead.

Accessing and attending school is particularly challenging for students with acute medical needs. This was brought home to me again just yesterday when, as I previously mentioned, I had the privilege to visit St. Joseph’s National School in Boyerstown, County Meath, to meet Willow, a student who is benefiting from a new support programme my Department has introduced, namely, a national nursing programme pilot for children with complex healthcare needs. This is a nationwide pilot scheme run in partnership with HSE and the NCSE that extends the paediatric home care package from the child's home into the school setting. This allows an agency nurse attend the school with the student for an agreed number of hours per week, and travel to and from school with the student, if necessary. The pilot is to be evaluated and the outcome will inform the provision of nursing support for students with complex healthcare needs into the future.

As I mentioned, the availability of therapy supports is a key issue for families of children with special educational needs. While the primary responsibility for the provision of these supports rests with the HSE, my Department is anxious to support this work and complement what is being delivered on the health side in our schools. One such proposal in this space being progressed by my Department is the use of the 39 therapy posts available under the school inclusion model to develop a national educational therapy support service. This new service would be embedded in the new NCSE regional structure. Under this service schools can access the right educational supports at the right time from advisers, visiting teachers, SENOs and therapists.

Funding of €40 million has been secured to run this year’s summer programme. This programme builds on the progress that has been made in recent years which has seen the participation of children grow from 13,000 in 2019 to more than 50,000 in 2023 and the number of schools participating grow by 12%. The Department’s main priority in 2024 is that children with the most complex special educational needs, especially in special schools, should have access to a school-based summer programme. This year will also see a new special school student teacher placement introduced. Special schools will be able to recruit up to two graduate teachers and final year PME student teachers, bolstering the capacity of schools to deliver the programme. In addition, a new partnership is being formed between a special school in Kerry and Munster Technological University, MTU, this year. MTU’s campus will host a summer programme, where the special school teaching staff will be supported by university students to deliver the programme. In addition, schools have been given the flexibility to engage staff who are not employed in their schools to support their summer programme. Student teachers and students in relevant disciplines such as therapy, social care and nursing, among others such as early childcare workers and carers, will also be able to register their interest in working on this year’s programme. It is initiatives like these that enable schools to provide a programme which last year saw 59 special schools run a programme, compared with just 34 special schools in 2019. I want to see even more schools offer the programme for this summer and my Department will continue to work to make this a reality.

We also need to look at the level of training provided in our teacher training colleges around special education, which is something I intend to explore further with my officials and stakeholders. Coupled with the accelerated delivery of special classes and special school places, I am confident that these measures will deliver a higher quality and more responsive special education provision to meet the needs of our children and young people. I look forward to hearing Members' contributions and I very much welcome the discussion of this matter in the House.

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