Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein)
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416. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of special education teachers working in primary and secondary schools, respectively, in tabular form. [26093/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The Special Education Teaching (SET) allocation provides a single unified allocation for special educational support teaching needs to each school, based on each school’s educational profile. This model has replaced the previous model of allocating resource teaching support and learning support to schools based on a diagnosis of disability.

The Special Education Teacher 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.

The allocation gives greater flexibility to schools as to how they can deploy their resources, to take account of the actual learning needs pupils have, as opposed to being guided by a particular diagnosis of disability, and schools are guided as to how they should make such allocation decisions.

The school will take account of learning needs of children as evidenced by performance in schools but also supported where relevant by information provided regarding the nature of a condition that a pupil may have.

The Department of Education and Skills has published guidelines for schools as to how they should utilise and deploy their resources under the new allocation model. The guidelines support schools in how they identify pupils for additional teaching support and decide how much support to provide for pupils who need it. 

A process is available where schools can seek a review of their allocations by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), including the utilisation of their allocations, in circumstances where a school considers that very exceptional circumstances have arisen subsequent to the development of the profile.  Detailed information on the NCSE review process is published on the NCSE website ncse.ie/for-schools.

The number of special education teachers working in primary and post primary schools at 31st March 2022 is as follows.