Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I hope to put this matter into context for the Senator. As she will be aware, enabling children with special educational needs to receive an education appropriate to their needs is a priority for the Government. The principle of inclusive education is set out in the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 and embedded in the Department's policy for supporting children with special educational needs, including those with reading difficulties. The Act provides that a child with special educational needs should be educated in an inclusive environment with children who do not have special educational needs unless it is not in the best interests of the child with special educational needs or is inconsistent with the effective provision of education for the children with whom the child is to be educated.The Department's policy is, therefore, to provide for the inclusive education of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools and this policy is supported by significant investment. Senator Currie will be aware that the Department will spend approximately €2 billion, or just under 25% of the education budget, in 2021. That is nearly a quarter of the entire budget spent on making additional provision for children with special educational needs this year. Only where it has been assessed that a child is unable to be supported in mainstream education are special class placements, as the Senator mentioned, or special school placements recommended and provided for. The majority of children with special needs attend mainstream education with appropriate educational and care supports.

In the context of the reading class, I want to talk about the new model for allocating special education teachers to mainstream schools, which, as the Senator will be aware, was introduced from September 2017. This is based on the profile needs of schools. The special education teacher, SET, allocation model provides a single unified allocation for special educational teaching support needs to schools based on a school's educational profile. It allows schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require it and to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs. We know that a diagnosis of need is not required to access such supports.

At the moment, we have in excess of 13,600 SETs who are provided to mainstream schools to support the learning needs of pupils who have additional needs in literacy, including those arising from specific learning difficulties. The Department’s policy, in accordance with the principles of inclusive education, is that people with such additional learning needs are supported in mainstream classes with additional provision made by a special education teacher.

Therefore, in that context the Department no longer supports the opening of new reading schools or classes, and no such classes have been opened since 2017. However, I understand that the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, which the Senator mentioned, recently engaged with St. Francis Xavier National School on an application for the opening of a reading class. The NCSE response to this was an operational error, I understand, and the school has been informed. I very much regret that this operational error occurred.

The NCSE has responsibility for co-ordinating and advising on the education provision for children nationwide, and it has well established structures in place for supporting schools and parents. I am aware of the good work being done by the teachers and SNAs of St. Francis Xavier National School in Dublin 15 in supporting children with special educational needs. The inspectorate’s 2020 report on the whole school evaluation carried out in the school provides ample testimony in this regard. I have asked the NCSE to review the special educational teacher allocation at this school to see if it meets the needs of the pupils in the school.

It is important to stress that I have also asked my Department to arrange a review of the policy on reading classes and schools. This review will, in turn, inform future policy for supporting children with special educational needs and the place of the specialist provision in these supports.