Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 946: To ask the Minister for Education and Science when a one to one resource teacher will be available to a person (details supplied) in County Limerick. [10915/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

An application for resource teaching hours for the pupil referred to by the Deputy was considered by my Department. The school was advised that the pupil's special education needs, SEN, appear to be within the high incidence disability category. It would be expected that the pupil's SEN can be met from within the current resource-learning support teaching allocation available to the school. The school has the services of a shared learning support teacher and resource teaching hours. It is a matter for the school to deploy these resources to meet the SEN of the pupils in the school.

In light of the reality that pupils in the high incidence disability categories of mild and borderline mild general learning disability and dyslexia are distributed throughout the education system, my Department, in consultation with educational interests, developed a general model of resource teacher allocation to schools to support students in these disability categories. This model, which was announced by my predecessor in 2004 to come into effect from September 2005, was designed to put in place a permanent resource in primary schools to cater for pupils in these categories. The model was constructed in order that allocations would be based on pupil numbers, taking into account the differing needs of the most disadvantaged schools and the evidence that boys have greater difficulties than girls in this regard.

The advantages of using a general allocation model are as follows: it facilitates early intervention as the resource is in place in the school when the child enrols; it reduces the need for individual applications and supporting psychological assessments; it puts resources in place on a more systematic basis, thereby giving schools more certainty about their resource levels; it gives more security to special education teaching posts and makes special education teaching a more attractive option; it allows flexibility to school management in the deployment of resources, leading to a more effective and efficient delivery of services; it will automatically adjust a school's general allocation on the basis of changing enrolment.

I have made it clear that while I am in favour of using a general allocation model for the reasons I have just given, I am conscious of the particular difficulties that the model announced last year could cause for small and rural schools if implemented as originally announced. For this reason, I have asked my Department to conduct a review of the model announced last year. The review will be completed in the coming weeks and its outcome will be announced in time to be implemented for the next school year.