Written answers

Tuesday, 4 March 2014

Department of Education and Skills

Special Educational Needs Services Provision

Photo of Charlie McConalogueCharlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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108. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to increase the number of hours learning support under the general allocation model in an all-girls school to five hours per mainstream teacher; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10885/14]

Photo of Charlie McConalogueCharlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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122. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills with regard to his decision to allocate four hours per mainstream teacher under the general allocation model to an all girls school and five hours per mainstream teacher to mixed and all boys schools if this decision is dictated by legislation and if so what section of what legislation is he acting under; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10975/14]

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 108 and 122 together.

I wish to advise the Deputy that differing teacher allocation ratios are applied under the General Allocation Model (GAM) in relation to boys, girls and mixed schools in order to account for differentials of prevalence of learning difficulty between boys and girls. The objective of this differentiation is to ensure that resources provided to schools to support children who have additional learning needs are targeted to ensure that those children most in need benefit from these resources.

The rationale for the differing ratios is not dictated by legislation, but is based on international literature on the incidence of disability as well as international and national surveys of literacy and numeracy which indicate that there is a greater incidence of disability/learning difficulty in boys than girls.

The NCSE recently published a report 'A study of the Prevalence of Special Educational Needs' which is available at www.ncse.ie and which contains details regarding the prevalence of special needs among the pupil population.

The criteria for the allocation of GAM hours is outlined in Circular 0007/2014, which is available on my Department's website at www.education.ie.

Finally, I wish to advise the Deputy that the NCSE report on Supporting Children with Special Educational Needs has recommended that under a proposed new allocation model, all children should be allocated additional resources in line with their level of need, rather than by disability category.

While there are no plans to increase the number of hours under the General Allocation Model in an all girls school, the NCSE has established a Working Group to develop a proposal for consideration for a new Tailored Allocation Model, which is set out as one of the principal recommendations of the report. I understand that the Working Group will report its findings before the end of spring 2014.

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