Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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618. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with SEN that are currently sanctioned for home tuition on the grounds that they do not have a school placement or an early intervention class placement; the same data for the past five years in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34298/22]

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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620. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with SEN in County Kildare who are currently sanctioned for home tuition on the grounds that they do not have a school placement or an early intervention class placement; the same data for the past five years in tabular form; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34300/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 618 and 620 together.

The purpose of the Home Tuition Grant Scheme is to provide funding towards the provision of a compensatory educational service for children who, for a number of specific reasons, are unable to attend school.

The aim of the Department is to meet the needs of families and to ensure every child is allocated a suitable school placement. The preferred approach is that children are educated in school settings where children may have access to fully qualified teachers, individualised education programmes, special needs assistants, school curriculum with the option, where possible and appropriate, of full or partial integration and interaction with student peers.

Accordingly, home tuition is provided as an interim measure only for children for whom a placement in a recognised school is not currently available and should not be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement.

The Special Education Needs Home Tuition Scheme provides funding towards a compensatory educational service for children with special educational needs for whom such a placement is not available. The scheme also provides for early educational intervention for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) ,who meet the scheme’s criteria, aged from 2.5 - 5 years before they start in school.

Children aged 4 years and over, including those with ASD, may enroll in primary placements (including special class and special schools placements).All children must be enrolled in the primary school system, whether through placement in mainstream classes, in special classes or in special schools in the September prior to their sixth birthday.

The applicable criteria under which children qualify for Home Tuition support are set out in Circular 0046/2022.

Details  of the number of applications for Home Tuition support which were sanctioned for the last five years, for which information, is available in the table below. These figures relate to sanctions provided for the school year, in may cases places are found for children during the course of the school year.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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619. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with SEN who are awaiting assessment to be sanctioned for home tuition in the absence of a school placement or early intervention class placement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34299/22]

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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621. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number of children with SEN in County Kildare who are awaiting assessment for sanction for home tuition on the grounds that they do not have a school placement or an early intervention class placement; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34301/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 619 and 621 together.

The purpose of the Home Tuition Grant Scheme is to provide funding towards the provision of a compensatory educational service for children who, for a number of specific reasons, are unable to attend school.

The aim of the Department is to meet the needs of families and to ensure every child is allocated a suitable school placement. The preferred approach is that children are educated in school settings where children may have access to fully qualified teachers, individualised education programmes, special needs assistants, school curriculum with the option, where possible and appropriate, of full or partial integration and interaction with student peers.

Accordingly, home tuition is provided as an interim measure only for children for whom a placement in a recognised school is not currently available and should not be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement.

The scheme provides a compensatory educational service for

- Children with special educational needs seeking an educational placement in a recognised school

- Students, enrolled in schools, with significant medical conditions which has caused, and is likely to continue to cause, major disruption to their attendance at school

- The scheme also provides Home Tuition for pre-school/early educational intervention for children with autism who meet the schemes eligibility criteria.

The applicable criteria under which children qualify for Home Tuition support are set out in Circular 0046/2022.

Home Tuition support is not provided only on the basis of an assessment but where it is part of the application process, the Department would only receive information when an assessment is complete. Therefore, the Department does not have data on the number of special educational needs children awaiting an assessment for home tuition sanction, in the absence of a school place.

Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein)
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622. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the cost to the Exchequer of providing home tuition to SEN children on the grounds that they are without a school placement or an early intervention class placement; if her Department can compare and contrast such cost with that of an in-school place per child; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34302/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of the Home Tuition Grant Scheme is to provide funding towards the provision of a compensatory educational service for children who, for a number of specific reasons, are unable to attend school.

The aim of the Department is to meet the needs of families and to ensure every child is allocated a suitable school placement. The preferred approach is that children are educated in school settings where children may have access to fully qualified teachers, individualised education programmes, special needs assistants, school curriculum with the option, where possible and appropriate, of full or partial integration and interaction with student peers.

Accordingly, home tuition is provided as an interim measure only for children for whom a placement in a recognised school is not currently available and should not be regarded as an optional alternative to a school placement.

The scheme provides a compensatory educational service for

- Children with special educational needs seeking an educational placement in a recognised school

- Students, enrolled in schools, with significant medical conditions which has caused, and is likely to continue to cause, major disruption to their attendance at school

- The scheme also provides Home Tuition for pre-school/early educational intervention for children with autism who meet the schemes eligibility criteria.

Each of the strands of the scheme prescribe the hours available for allocation. For children with Autism aged from 2.5 years to 3 years the number of tuition hours available is 10 hours per week. From 3 years, for children with Autism for whom school placements are not available, the number of available tuition hours is 20 per week.

For children with special educational needs over 4 years for whom school placements are not available, the number of available tuition hours is 20 per week.

The applicable criteria under which children qualify for Home Tuition support are set out in Circular 0046/2022.

The hourly rate for a Primary qualified teacher providing tuition to a primary school pupil is €43.34.

The hourly rate for a Post-Primary qualified teacher providing tuition to a post-primary school pupil is €47.55. 

A modified rate of €35.69 per hour will apply in a number of circumstances teachers providing tuition to pupils in sectors in which they are not qualified. 

Over 1,400 families were supported by Home Tuition grant funding under the various Department Scheme in the 2020/21 school year with an allocation of approximately €17 million.

The profile cost per children with special education needs various greatly depending on their individual strengths and needs. The details of the individual educational needs will inform supports and services which will be required to meet those needs. There are many supports and agencies feeding into this process such as additional supports such as Special Needs Assistants (SNA), Special Education Teachers (SET) and agencies such as National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE). Therefore, the cost of an in-school place per child varies greatly from case to case for this reason the comparison with a child on home tuition is not available.