Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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121. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will address concerns regarding the new system of allocation of special needs assistants that is being piloted this year; her plans to address the long waiting times for special needs assessment by the National Educational Psychological Service. [34079/15]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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My question asks if the Minister will address concerns regarding the new system for the allocation of resource and learning support teachers which is being piloted in a number of schools this year. I also ask the Minister to outline her plans to address the long waiting times for special educational needs assessment by National Educational Psychological Service psychologists.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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I understand the Deputy's question refers to the allocation of resource teachers.

The National Council for Special Education, NCSE, identified that the current model for allocating resource teachers to schools is potentially inequitable because access to professional assessments is not always readily available to those who cannot afford to access them privately. The proposed new model currently being piloted will remove the formal requirement for such assessments.

In September, my officials had a very positive meeting with the participating schools and through ongoing engagements I expect the pilot to be successfully concluded. The pilot will test the new model and will allow for any concerns to be fully addressed prior to implementation of the new model.

The National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS, does not maintain waiting lists for assessment but, in consultation with schools, prioritises children who have failed to make adequate progress despite an appropriate continuum of support being delivered for those children.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister for her reply. There is no doubt that there are serious problems with the provision of learning support and resource hours, in particular with the distribution of the latter which are based on assessments carried by a NEPS psychologists or on private psychological assessments which parents have arranged for their children because they have grown tired and are unwilling to wait any longer for an assessment by NEPS.

I note that the Minister expects the pilot to be successful. I ask her to elaborate on the pilot project and outline how many schools are involved. I note that in recent media reports the Minister has made it clear that there will be no reduction in the number of resource teachers available to any of the schools participating in the pilot. The concern surrounding the new model is that teachers will be taken from some schools and reassigned to others and in effect, the Minister will be robbing Peter to pay Paul because there is no plan to increase the overall number of resource teachers. I cannot get my head around how the Department can run a pilot project while also ensuring that no school sees a reduction in its resources. Ultimately, that goes against what the Minister is seeking to implement.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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On the Deputy's specific question about the pilot schools, 47 schools will take part. A total of 28 primary and 19 post-primary schools have agreed to participate in the pilot project. They were initially selected by the Educational Research Centre and efforts were made to include schools of different sizes, different levels of disadvantage and gender differences. One of the commitments given to the schools was that if they participated in the pilot project they would not lose resources during the pilot phase. That was a practical way of ensuring that schools of different types would be willing to participate in the pilot project. We did not want them to lose resources because they were participating in a pilot study from which we wanted to learn. That was why we gave that commitment to them.

On the new scheme more generally, it has been identified that the current scheme is inequitable and that we need to move to a new scheme. However, we did not have the information we required on complex needs in order to be able to implement a new scheme fully. That is why we are conducting the pilot and why we want to learn from it.

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister's response shows again that this not a pilot scheme. As she noted, assurances are provided to schools engaging in the scheme that they will not lose any resource teaching hours as a result of their participation. However, the outcome of the change the Minister wishes to implement is that many schools will lose resource teaching hours. How can this be described as a pilot scheme? While the Department may learn something from the scheme, it will be a sham if this approach is not implemented in full, as the Minister plans.

The Minister indicated that the National Educational Psychological Service does not maintain a list of students who are waiting for a psychological assessment. How appropriate, given that if it were to maintain a waiting list, it would become clear to NEPS that there is no end to the number of students who are unable to obtain the assessment required to provide a clear picture of the supports they need, including the resource hours they need to help them develop.

Even if the findings of the new pilot project are implemented, does the Minister not agree that assessments by NEPS psychologists of students who have particular needs will continue to be important in ensuring that schools and parents are made aware of students' needs and that the children in question are provided with adequate supports? The Government must address the shortage of NEPS psychologists and take a realistic and honest approach to this issue. The current approach of introducing a pilot scheme is a sham because it is not a proper pilot scheme.

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Department has consistently increased the number of special needs assistants and resource teaching hours in recent years. The increases this year were especially significant, and we also increased the number of NEPS psychologists. This year, for the first time, every school has access to a NEPS psychologist. Every school is allocated a specific number of psychological assessments and some will pay privately to have assessments done, which is where the current inequity arises. Under the new system, we want to ensure that a NEPS assessment will not be necessary for a child to secure the supports he or she needs. It is probably not a good use of resources to have NEPS psychologists carry out assessments solely for the purpose of securing resources for children. Under the new model, I expect they will be freed up to carry out the tasks required to meet the psychological needs of children in schools. It was for this reason that the National Council for Special Education concluded that a new model of resource allocation was required.