Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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205. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to improve access to special educational supports; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3009/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Funding for special education provision in 2016 amounted to some €1.5 billion, which was equivalent to over 17% of the gross overall allocation for education and training and an increase of 10% in spending in the previous two years.  This funding provides for a range of supports and services including additional learning and resource teaching support, access to support, special transport arrangements, building adaptations, enhanced capitation in special schools and special classes, specialised equipment, additional teacher training and the services of the National Educational Psychological Service.

12,900 Special Needs Assistants (Ss) were available for allocation to schools to the end of 2016, which represents an increase of 23% over the numbers allocated in 2011.  There are also over 12,500 Learning Support and Resource Teacher posts in mainstream primary and post primary schools for the 2016/2017 school year. 

The NCSE has allocated 7430 resource teacher posts to schools for the 2016/17 school year; this represents an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers which have been allocated since the 2011/12 school year, at which point 5265 posts were allocated.  In addition, over 5000 learning support posts are allocated to schools under the General Allocation Model for primary schools and Learning Support allocations for post primary schools.  

On the 18th January, I announced that a new model for allocating Special Education Teaching Resources to mainstream primary and post primary schools will be introduced from September 2017. The new model will allocate teachers to schools on the basis of the profiled educational needs of each school. This will end the unfairness which exists in the current system, whereby many parents are unable to access the assessments needed to qualify for educational resources. This had a particularly negative impact on children from more disadvantaged areas.

In order to build upon the very significant development of supports for children with Special Educational Needs, additional provisions were made in Budget 2017. €18m was provided to fund an additional 900 teaching posts to support the introduction of this new allocation model. This substantial additional provision will ensure that:

- Up to 1,000 schools will receive additional allocations, where the new model indicates additional need.

- No school will receive an allocation of resources less than the allocation they received in the 2016/17 school year.

Also, a further €3.8m was provided to fund an additional 115 Ss in 2017 to meet expected demands for such supports.   

There are over 1,150 Special Classes in place in comparison to 548 in 2011, with approximately 150 new classes having been made available for the current school year, 2016/17. 125 special schools also provide specialist education for those pupils who need it, from infants to eighteen years of age. 

In recent years, the NCSE has provided my Department with a number of policy advice papers on the provision of supports for children with special needs, all of which are available on the NCSE’s website.

At my request, the NCSE are currently undertaking a comprehensive assessment of the Special Needs Assistant Scheme and I have specifically asked the NCSE to identify the most appropriate form of support options to provide better outcomes for students with Special Educational Needs, having regard to the significant amount of State investment in this area.

It is intended to bring into effect many improvements to the provision of special educational needs support, through policy developments across a range of areas, in conjunction with NCSE policy advice.

As committed to in the Programme for a Partnership Government, I plan to examine the adequacy of the present policies and provision, and their scope for improvement. In doing so, I will take into account the recommendations contained in the NCSE policy advice papers.  The Programme commits that we will invest additional resources in the National Educational Psychological Service to ensure earlier intervention and access for young children and teenagers and to offer immediate support to schools in cases of critical incidents. The Programme commits to bring the total number of NEPS psychologists to 238 from the current sanctioned limit of 173. A recruitment process is currently underway to bring the numbers of NEPS Psychologists to currently approved numbers.

I can confirm that this Government will continue to ensure that the supports required to ensure that all children with special educational needs can continue to participate in education will be provided.

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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206. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to improve access to Irish sign language courses for students with hearing disabilities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3010/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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There are a number of specific supports in place for students who learn through Irish Sign Language (ISL) and a number of initiatives which seek to promote, develop and implement ISL in order that it will achieve greater recognition and use in the education system. These include:

- special schools for the deaf have been encouraged in relation to the use of sign language in class.

- funding for an ISL weekly home tuition service through which deaf tutors visit the homes of deaf pre-school children and deaf school-going pupils to provide training in ISL for the deaf children, pupils, their siblings and parents.

- funding is also made available through the Special Education Support Service (SESS) to enable individual teachers and whole school staff to undertake courses in Irish Sign Language which are available throughout the country through a variety of providers.

Sign language is an option in the Leaving Certificate Applied. There is also an opportunity for students to learn sign language in the course of Transition Year.

The Post-Primary Languages Initiative has developed a specification for a short course in Irish Sign Language (ISL) which is available as part of the new Junior Cycle. The emphasis is on developing communication skills in ISL at level A1 (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). This course develops students' ability to understand ISL in live, and in recorded situations, to produce the language and to interact with other signers in a simple way and on familiar topics. A link to the course is available at:

My Department, through the Higher Education Authority (HEA), has established and funds a Centre for Deaf Studies in Trinity College, Dublin which provides diploma courses for ISL/English interpreters, deaf tutors and in deaf studies. The course modules deal with issues such as sign linguistics, bi-lingualism and socio-linguistics of sign language. The course is delivered in seminar sessions/group work and the award of the diploma is based on continued assessment and a project and course design. The National Council for Special Education (NCSE) published its Policy Advice on the Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children in Ireland which makes a number of recommendations for the improvement of educational provision for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children, including recommendations relating to ISL provision. This policy advice is available on the NCSE's website . A number of the recommendations contained in the policy advice on the Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children have been, or are currently in the process of being implemented. My Department will continue to implement the recommendations in conjunction with other Departments and agencies where necessary, subject to the availability of resources.

The National Council for Special Education has also published a parental information leaflet for parents of children who are Deaf of Hard of Hearing, which provides details of the supports which are available for such children.

Assessment, rehabilitation and information services for children with hearing impairment and their families are funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE), either directly or indirectly. Services provided include communication therapy and lip reading classes as well as sign language classes.