Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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341. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if details of the resource allocation for each school will be published; the date on which; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13593/17]

Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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343. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of additional resource hours that have been allocated to schools under the new resource allocation model; the number of schools that received additional hours under the new model; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13595/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions No. 341 and 343 together.

I wish to advise the Deputy that DES Circular 0013/2017 for primary schools and 0014/2017 for post primary schools were published on 7th March 2017.

These Circulars set out the details of the new model for allocating special education teachers to schools.

The revised allocation process replaces the generalised allocation process at primary and post primary school level for learning support and high incidence special educational needs, and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) allocation process which provided additional resource teaching supports to schools, to support pupils assessed as having Low Incidence disabilities.

The new Special Education Teaching allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on each school’s educational profile.

Allocations based on the school profiles were issued to all schools on 7th March. Details of the special education teaching allocations have also been published on the NCSE website.

The aim of this new model is to deliver better outcomes for children with special educational needs. Substantial research, analysis, consultation with service users and stakeholders, and piloting have gone in to the development of this model and all of the evidence points to the fact that this new system will deliver better outcomes for children.

No school will lose supports as a result of the implementation of the new model. In addition, no school will receive an allocation, for the support of pupils with complex needs, less than the allocation they received to support such pupils during the 2016/17 school year. No allocation made for such pupils by the NCSE will be removed from schools as long as that pupil remains in the school.

An additional 900 teaching posts have been provided to support the introduction of this new allocation model. The provision of an additional 900 teaching posts is a very significant investment in the provision of additional teaching support for pupils with special educational needs in our schools. This is additional to an increase of 41% in the number of resource teachers allocated to schools annually by the NCSE since 2011.

To date, 770 of the additional 900 teaching posts have been allocated to schools. Some schools are still due to receive allocations as they are newly opening schools, schools which are amalgamating from September 2017, or where adjustments are required to be made to the allocations.

Of the total allocations made to schools to date, 1358 schools have so far received increased allocations under the new allocation model, including 1036 primary schools, and 322 post primary schools.

Details of the allocations which have been made for each school have been published on the National Council for Special Education website www.ncse.ie. 

No school has received an allocation for the 2017/18 school year which is less than their total allocation for special education support for the 2016/17 school year. The provision of a profiled allocation will give a fairer allocation for each school which recognises that all schools need an allocation for special needs support, but which provides a graduated allocation which takes into account the actual level of need in each school.