Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Education is the great leveller. Education should be an opportunity to give every child the ability to reach his or her potential. It is so important that, as a country, we make sure we have equality within the education system for pupils themselves and for parents. The information that I am getting back from a large number of schools at the moment is that there is a crisis first of all in being able to access teachers in general because of a shortage of teachers in a number of different areas, but my understanding is that this is particularly acute in the context of children with additional needs and special needs within schools.

I have an example of a school in my constituency that is renowned for its work in terms of inclusion and providing services for children with additional needs. That is so much so that parents have moved from different parts of the country to the locality because the school works so hard to be able to provide the best education to children with additional needs. It is an incredible situation that because of their work, they have managed to raise the standards and the outcomes in the school. Many parents have glowing reports of how their children have come on in that regard. The Minister of State can believe it or not, but even though the school has an increasing school population, it is to have a reduction in the number of special education teachers. In a response she gave to a parliamentary question, she indicated that some schools got an increase in special education teachers and others had a reduction but, in the main, those that had a reduction were schools in which the population was falling. This school falls into the 10% of schools in areas where there has been an increase in population, yet there was a reduction in the number of special education teachers. The difficulty here is that some of these appraisals are being made by the Department on the basis of the averages of the school outcomes, but different pupils in the class have far different levels of ability and need far more help.

We have this crazy situation where schools and principals are struggling to get the necessary supports. They are getting two and a half hours here and two and a half hours there. Special education teachers are spending their day driving from school to school to fill in those small little gaps. Schools are being forced into the appeals process, which is a full-time job in itself. I talk to teachers who tell me they are spending weeks working until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. completing forms for an appeals process. The appeals process only looks at pupils from junior infants up to second class and, incredibly, ignores the pupils in the latter years of school. Some of the junior pupils cannot even get appraisals because the system is so log-jammed. One parent of a child in junior infants was told they would have spend €2,500 to get an assessment for the child.

The system is grinding to a halt. I do not believe this is just a bureaucratic issue. There is a funding issue and a recruitment issue at the heart of this and, as a result, schools are suffering significantly. There are many parents with children who, if they had the inputs that were needed would be able to develop far more successfully, who would be able to reach a greater potential and would be able to enjoy and achieve far more in life, but the Government is actually taking that resource, which is having a material effect on each of those individual lives and their families. I implore the Minister of State to look at the schools that have been battling to try and get special education teacher resource and to do her best to make sure that they have them without this constant battle.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue and giving me the opportunity to set out the importance of the special education teacher allocation in supporting children with special educational needs in mainstream schools.

At the outset, it is very important to state that there will be more special education teachers in our schools in September 2024 than ever before - an increase of 1,000 from the 2020-21 school year. This is in addition to a significant reduction in class sizes at primary level over three budgets to the point where the pupil-teacher ratio at that level is now 23:1. This means, more than ever, children with special educational needs in mainstream schools are best supported to meet their needs. In addition, the model will now be run annually in line with general teacher allocations. This allows schools to better plan their staffing structures and gives them time to arrange clusters in areas where schools share a special education teacher.

I would like to clarify that the special education teaching model is an allocation model to provide schools with additional teaching hours to support the teaching needs of their students. When the 2017 model was introduced, it replaced a diagnosis-led model with one based on need. That has not changed for 2024 and the allocation to schools is to support all of the children in school who require some level of additional teaching support.

There has been a limited change to the method used to allocate special education teachers to mainstream classes. The Department of Education commenced a review of the model in late 2022 to ensure that it was meeting the changing needs in special education. This review involved extensive consultation and visits to schools by the National Council for Special Education to look at the strengths and shortcomings of the allocation model. The feedback has been incorporated into the revised model for 2024-25. The allocation model for 2024-25 distributes the total available number of special education teaching posts in line with each school's profile of need. The model makes an allocation on the basis of a number of inputs, including enrolment numbers. It also uses school-level data from standardised tests in order to reflect levels of overall need and complex need within a school. It seeks to distribute teaching resources in the fairest possible manner, taking into account quality, robust evidence in respect of individual schools.

This ensures that resources are in the right place at the right time to meet the needs of children in mainstream schools. The model is now utilising data provided to the Department of Education by individual schools to ensure that resources are in the right place at the right time. The revised model is providing an annual allocation of special education teaching hours, using the best possible available data sources, and is ensuring that the right resource is available to children with special educational needs. Schools have autonomy to deploy those resources to meet the needs of their students.

The Department acknowledges that every school is different and that schools can experience unique circumstances that may be difficult to reflect in any standardised method. This is always a challenge when making allocations to 4,000 schools. It is for this reason that the Department, working with the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, has streamlined the review process for special education teaching hours. Schools that have any concerns can engage with the NCSE in respect of their allocations. Reviews are being conducted by the NCSE between March and May to better enable schools to plan for September. Additional resources will be provided to schools in cases where the NCSE has identified that this is required.

The NCSE has responsibility for planning and co-ordinating school supports for children with special educational needs. It has advised that it has reviewed and streamlined the special education teacher, SET, review process following feedback from schools and our education partners. That new review process was introduced for the SET allocation for the 2024-25 school year. A school can request a review of its allocation through the NCSE portal in March 2024. The NCSE also has committed to completing these reviews in the period between March and May of this year, and they will be prioritised.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú)
Link to this: Individually | In context

With respect, that is the theory. The practice, unfortunately, is different. I understand that Ministers will be told by their senior civil servants that everything is grand, but the fact is that we are being told by people on the ground that it is not grand. I will give an example of the theory and the practice colliding. A principal sent me a letter they received from the National Educational Psychological Service, NEPS. In that letter, NEPS congratulates them and says it continues to recruit, in this case, additional psychologists and hopes to assign a psychologist to the school at the earliest opportunity. NEPS states by way of reminder that if the school needs to access the service for an urgent reason, it will be provided. Then we receive further information in an email to the effect that NEPS is experiencing staff shortages and the NCSE is operating on a prioritised work schedule. The principal is asked to send an email, etc. Alternatively, they can get in contact by phone. In other words, the service is there. When you want to access it, however, it is not. We know that the majority of children and adolescents in Ireland with autism, for example, have stated that they have not received in the past year the services they need. Over 74% said that one more service that was promised to them in the past 12 months has not been given to them.

I understand that the Minister of State is doing her best to try to improve the service and that she is being told by her Department that the service is running fine. The reality is, however, that a significant number of schools across the country are having these services taken away. This is having an enormous impact on those children. When they go to appeal the reduction in service, it is so onerous that it is nearly a full-time job to apply. I know from my experience that Departments can be inordinately bureaucratic in respect of these issues. Schools say they do not need diagnoses in respect of the children, but then they are told they need proof that the child needs the service, so the Department is saying two different things to schools at the same time.

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

I will contact the NCSE about the review process if it is overly onerous and will give it that feedback. There is significant consultation with all the stakeholders - management, teachers, schools - right across the country in order to ensure that this review process is up to date and that every year we get the correct data in order that this is efficient. The reviews coming back from the NCSE are being prioritised and the council is liaising directly with schools that have applied for this review where they feel they have not got adequate allocation of SETs. That process is under way for some within the Deputy's constituency. Deputy English raised one specific school in that regard. That work will be ongoing, but if the process is very onerous, I will raise that.

As regards the 2024 budget, the Department will spend €2.7 billion on special education, excluding capital expenditure, which is estimated at over €200 million.

Schools have been able to request reviews of their allocations directly from the NCSE through its website portal since 1 March last. A total of 218 applications have been received from schools during this period. Applications received from schools that are developing or rapidly developing receive first priority. Reviews, as the Deputy knows, are conducted by the NCSE between March and May to better enable schools to plan for the following September. This process has commenced and the first tranche of schools, numbering 30, will be contacted over the coming weeks to advise them of additional allocations. It is important that schools that have a concern that they have not got adequate SET allocations go through that review process. I will engage with the NCSE on the issues the Deputy has raised about the process being very onerous.