Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)
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37. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to carry out a specific assessment of the educational outcomes of children with special educational needs, as recommended by the Children's Rights Alliance, to complement the promised assessment of special needs assistants as outlined in the recently published Action Plan for Education; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28373/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I have recently requested the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the Special Needs Assistant Scheme and in my request I specifically asked the NCSE to define and examine outcomes of students under current arrangements.

The Programme for a Partnership Government includes a commitment to examine the adequacy of the present policies and provision, and their scope for improvement.

In recent years, the NCSE has provided my Department with a number of policy advice papers including ‘Supporting Students with Special Educational Needs in Schools’ (2013) and ‘Delivery for Students with Special Educational Needs: A proposed new model for allocating teaching resources for Students with Special Needs.’ (2014). 

These Reports made a number of recommendations regarding the development of a new model for allocating teaching resources to schools.

They noted the importance of measuring educational progress and outcomes for pupils, noting that research had identified that a range of different outcome measures can be used to evaluate how students are progressing in school, such as; academic achievement; attendance, and happiness and independence related outcomes.

The majority of schools now record outcomes for pupils as part of the pupil planning process.

Improvements in the manner in which outcomes can be recorded and reported for children with special educational needs, are currently being considered in the context of the development of the new resource allocation model. It is intended that any such proposals, along with other proposals to improve the existing resource allocation system will be explored with education partners, prior to implementation.