Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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173. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the ability to bank special education teaching hours has been removed from schools; and if so, if this decision will be reversed given the ongoing teacher supply crisis. [23767/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The 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.

Schools are front-loaded with resources, based on each school’s profile. The allocations to schools include provision to support all pupils in the schools, including where a child receives a diagnosis after the allocation is received by a school, or where there are newly enrolling pupils to the school. .

This allocation allows schools to provide additional teaching support for all pupils who require such support in their schools and for schools to deploy resources based on each pupil’s individual learning needs.

A re-profiling of the SET model was completed in April and the revised allocation of SET hours for each school based on the needs profile within the model have been advised to all schools by the NCSE for the 2022/2023 school year

I would like to advise the Deputy that there is no facility to carryover hours from one school year to the next. Hours accumulated in any given school year must be utilised in the same school year.

Earlier this year the Department advised schools, at a time when there was significant pressure on school staffing due to Covid-19 that, as exceptional measure the banking of SET hours could be facilitated until the Easter break. Schools were advised that any loss of special education teaching time should be made up at the first available opportunity by employing additional teaching resources to make up for the shortfall.

This was an urgent measure of last resort and was not intended to be available on an ongoing basis due to the potential to impact negatively on students with SEN.

The importance in providing regular and structured support on a weekly basis to students with special education needs is crucial to their educational development and long term life prospects and for that reason it is in the interests of these children that all hours allocated to them in the current school year are used as envisaged.

NPHET reviewed the remaining public health measures in February, including the infection prevention control measures and restrictions in school settings. The Government accepted the recommendations of the NPHET to remove remaining restrictions relating to physical distancing in schools. Public health numbers have continued to decline in the interim, reducing the level of staff absences and schools have been advised to use the normal sequencing for covering teacher absences. The urgent measure of last resort to facilitate schools with banking of hours is no longer required in this context. The Department has put in place a range of measures to increase the availability of substitutes for schools including flexibilities around student teacher availability, and these measure remain in place for this school year.

I am pleased to advise the Deputy that schools have shown excellent co-operation in how they have managed this measure of last resort and as a consequence less than 2% of SET hours that were banked remain to be used by the end of the current school year. The remaining hours are at primary level so schools have over 6 weeks to deliver any outstanding banked hours for the benefit of children with special educational needs.