Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Seanad Éireann: recognises:

- the fundamental right of every child to access education;

- the growing current and projected demand for special education placements;

- the current shortage of special classes and appropriate school places, leaving children, particularly those with additional needs, without access to suitable education;

- the trauma and absolute heartbreak endured by parents and families due to the lack of suitable school places;

- the failure of successive Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael governments to adequately plan for and invest in the expansion of special education;

- the lack of coordination between the Department of Education, the National Council for Special Education and schools, resulting in a fragmented and inefficient system;

- the disproportionate impact on children from disadvantaged backgrounds, who face even greater barriers to accessing appropriate education;

- that the current state of special education is unacceptable and fails to uphold the rights of children with additional needs;

calls on the Government to:

- immediately expand the number of special school places, special classes and special education teaching hours across the State;

- ensure every child currently without a suitable school place, and all those due to start primary or secondary school in September 2025, have access to a suitable school place within a reasonable distance from their home;

- enact the Education (Inclusion of Persons) Bill 2023 and the Education (Amendment) Bill 2024 to identify demand, gaps in provision and to develop a long-term strategy for special education;

- ensure meaningful consultation and greater collaboration between education authorities and school leaders in special education planning and delivery, and to address the shortage in special school and special class placements;

- streamline the process for opening new special classes and provide additional funding and resources for schools opening new special classes;

- invest in recruitment and continuous professional development for teachers and special needs assistants to ensure they are supported to meet the diverse needs of students in special classes; this must include addressing the root causes of the recruitment and retention crisis in the education and disability sectors;

- expand the Educational Therapy Support Service to help build the capacity of school communities to meet students’ needs.”

I welcome the Minister of State. I know him from our past dealings and his work on the disability committee and I know he has a good understanding of the issues facing parents and children with additional educational needs. There is much more to be done in the sphere of education to address these needs. In recent weeks and months, we have seen several demonstrations and sleep-outs undertaken by parents in Dublin and Cork and meetings in different parts of the country to highlight that there is a lack of appropriate school placements for children with additional educational needs in many counties.

I attended several meetings in primary schools in County Cavan in recent weeks. Several issues were highlighted. I will go through them in a moment. There are deep concerns about the lack of availability of school places, training for teachers and therapeutic supports. I am disappointed that the Government submitted an amendment to the motion. I feel the motion is not that dissimilar to the amendment. However, the amendment represents a watering down of our requests and makes more vague requests of the Government to implement changes.It is just an excuse to pat yourselves on the back for the work done. While some good initiatives have been brought forward, there is still not enough to meet the needs of so many children with additional education needs in this country.

One of the issues that was highlighted to me was the lack of school places. We had parents who had children in sixth class who were in an autistic unit in a primary school who still had not been given a school placement in a secondary school. They had applied to a number of schools yet they still did not know whether there would be a suitable place for them in the community that would not only address their child's needs but mean they would not have to travel an hour to find a school placement.

One school said there was only one student leaving this year but next year it would have four. All this means there should be a lot more planning done to ensure there are places for the children who are going through primary school and have additional needs, who may be autistic, and who will need a suitable placement in second level. Children spend eight years in primary school, which should be ample time to ensure that there is an appropriate school placement for each child at the end of those years without parents having to apply to several schools. We have heard of parents having to apply to up to 30 schools. It is soul destroying for them to receive one refusal after another. Refusals happened so often that the NCSE had to get involved in some cases and go through the application processes for the parents. It is a very tough process.

One of the teachers at the school talked about the lack of training for teachers in special educational needs. When teachers are being trained in college, they should all be trained in how to teach how to make sure that they include students with additional needs. That is not done. There should be ongoing professional development for qualified teachers and for SNAs. There should be specialised courses in the area of special education. This is done in other countries. Such provision should be looked at and could be replicated here.

The teacher told me that she wanted to do her utmost to help the six students in her class. She used her own time and funds to train and upskill so that she would be best placed to help students. The parents had no end of praise for her. I have come across other teachers in the same situation where, oftentimes just newly qualified, they are asked to take the special class for two years, thus guaranteeing a permanent appointment in the school in a mainstream class. That is not the way to approach this matter. Children with additional needs need consistency. They need a teacher who understands their needs but they also need to know that their teacher will be there on an ongoing basis and will not be gone after a year or two years, thus necessitating them having to get used to somebody else all over again. Not all schools but some schools could adopt a much better approach to their special classes and ensuring that staff have the required training to provide the proper education for the children in their classes.

All of the schools that I have dealt with have brought up the possibility of therapeutic supports in the school. We know there is little or nothing in the community at the moment and that children are really suffering as a result. People talked about years ago when the early development team was still in situand how a therapist would come into the school and help to inform the school of the different things that they should be doing. They said that the measure was far from perfect but it was a help. That provision is not happening now at all at any level. The children do not get any sort of support in the community. The teachers said that they are not speech and language therapists, occupational therapists or physiotherapists and should not be expected to know how to deal with someone like this. They asked whether therapists could be employed by a cluster of schools, thus allowing therapists to visit those schools on different days and engage with the children in the classes that required their help. Some of these students are pre-verbal and some are non-verbal so they need help. These therapists could also teach staff how to deal with different situations.

Yesterday, I talked to a representative of the NCSE and was told that the number of school placements would continue to break down. We see children on reduced timetables or being expelled. The nub of the problem is that children are not getting the support they require so they cannot communicate, which leads to frustration and to them often lashing out, so it is most important that proper therapeutic supports are rolled out in schools.