David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 893: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if children with Down syndrome are automatically entitled to resource teaching hours; the number of children with Down syndrome that have been refused resource teaching hours; her plans to amend policies in this area; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10346/07]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, my Department has put in place a range of teaching and care supports for children with special educational needs, including those with Down Syndrome. The professionally-assessed needs of the individual child determine the appropriate model of response in each case.

Children with Down Syndrome are entitled to additional provision in school, either under the terms of the general allocation system for children with high incidence special needs or through an allocation of additional resources if the child is assessed as being within the low incidence category of special need.

The general allocation system for primary schools was put in place in September 2005, so that children with high incidence special needs such as mild general learning disability could get resource teaching support at school without the need for an individual assessment in each case. All schools have been allocated resource teaching hours, depending on their enrolment levels.

The new system has a number of benefits associated with it:

It puts resources in place on a more systematic basis, thereby giving schools more certainty about their resource levels

It facilitates early intervention as the resource is in place when the child enrols;

It reduces the need for individual applications and supporting psychological assessments; and

It allows flexibility to school management in the deployment of resources, leading to a more effective delivery of services.

The new system means that rather than each school having to make individual applications for resource hours for such pupils, an allocation of resource teaching hours is provided in advance to the school. It is a matter then for the school to determine the pupils with high incidence special education and learning support needs that will receive this support. With the thousands of resource teachers now in place in our schools, each school has enough general allocation hours to provide its pupils with a level of support appropriate to their needs.

The school can then use its professional judgement to decide how these hours are divided among the pupils in the school, to ensure that all their needs are met.

This is a major improvement on the previous system, under which children with high incidence special needs required a psychological assessment before the Department allocated resource teaching hours. This time-consuming process often led to delays in children getting the support they needed. Learning support/resource teachers are now in place in all primary schools, so that children who need their assistance can get it straight away. The general allocation system does not preclude the provision of one-to-one tuition to pupils who need such support.

It would appear that a significant percentage of children with Down Syndrome have been assessed as having a mild general learning disability which comes under the high incidence disability category. Therefore, they are given extra teaching support from within the school's general allocation of learning support/resource teaching support.

In circumstances where a child with Down Syndrome has other associated needs and would fall into the low incidence disability categories, this may automatically attract an individual resource teaching allocation. Applications for such support should be referred to the local Special Educational Needs Organiser (SENO) by the school. The SENOs operate within my Department's policy parameters in considering these applications and convey decisions directly to the schools without recourse to my Department. As the application process is administered by the SENOs, my Department does not hold information relating to the outcome of the process.

As the Deputy will be aware this Government has provided a dramatic expansion in special education supports: there are now 15,000 adults in our schools working solely with children with special needs — compared to just a fraction of this a few years back. This includes more than 8,000 special needs assistants, whereas there were only 300 in 1998. The system for accessing supports has also been improved with the establishment of the National Council for Special Education, with its network of 80 local Special Educational Needs Organisers.

Further improvements in services are on the way, with the roll-out of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004. Over €820 million is being provided for special education in 2007- €180 million, or nearly 30%, more than what was provided in the 2006 Estimates.

I can confirm that the Department will continue to prioritise the issue of special needs education and, in co-operation with the National Council for Special Education and the education partners, ensure that all children with special needs, including those with Down Syndrome, have the supports they need to enable them to reach their full potential.