Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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420. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will intervene to support a special school (details supplied) to keep its classes open for children with autism. [51278/22]

Josepha Madigan (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for the question and would like to advise the following:

Enabling children with special educational needs to receive an education is a priority for this Government.

For 2022, my Department will spend in excess of €2 Billion, or over 25% of the Department’s budget on providing a wide range of schemes and supports for children with special educational needs.

For 2023, this spend will be substantially increased by over 10%, meaning that for 2023 my Department will spend over €2.6 billion on special education.

This level of educational funding and support is unprecedented and represents in excess of 27% of the Department’s total allocation for 2023.

This includes additional teaching and care supports. It also includes funding for the National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) for an additional 54 psychologists to provide services to special schools and special classes.

In 2022, funding for an additional 980 teachers and 1,165 special needs assistants was provided. For 2023, the number of teaching and SNA posts in our schools will increase with an additional 686 teachers and a further 1,194 special needs assistants in our schools next year.

For the first time ever we will have over 19,000 teachers working in the area of special education and over 20,000 Special needs assistants. Together we have almost 40,000 qualified and committed people in our schools who are focused wholly and exclusively on supporting children with special educational needs.

Under the provisions of the Education Act 1998 the board of management is responsible for the day to day running of a school.

School authorities have discretion in relation to the need for school closures whether this arises from adverse weather, failure of heating system, electricity or other unforeseen reasons. It is also the responsibility of the Board to ensure that the school is open for tuition at primary level for 182 days per school year. The minimum number of tuition days at primary level has reduced from 183 days to 182 as a result of the new public holiday introduced in 2022 and is set out in Circular 0008/2022.

A Board of Management should assess critically each proposal for closure of its school on days not occurring during the school vacation, in order to determine whether closure of the school is in the best interest of the children. A link to Circular 11/95 is available: here.

Department Circular 11/95 “Time in School” states that the school calendar could be subject to change in the event of a closure for an exceptional cause but that as a general rule any unforeseen closure would be compensated later in the school year. It also advises the Boards of Management that in planning the school year, it should make allowances for days on which the school may have to be closed due to unforeseen or exceptional circumstances. However, schools must ensure the safety of those in their care and give due consideration to this in making a decision on whether to close a school.

The Department does not centrally determine whether or not a school can close once the overall number of teaching days is delivered by the school over the course of the year as the decision rests with the Board of Management of the school.

Parents should engage with their local school regarding the arrangements for school closure at a local level.

The recruitment and appointment of teachers to fill teaching posts is a matter for the individual school authority, subject to procedures agreed under Section 24 of the Education Act 1998 (as amended by the Education (Amendment) Act 2012).

In accordance with Department Circulars 0044/2019 and 31/2011, schools are required to employ appropriately qualified and registered teachers and ensure that unemployed teachers should be offered employment in preference to those who have retired

My Department runs a comprehensive programme of work to support the supply of both primary and post-primary teachers.

I have allocated significant additional posts to the primary substitute teacher supply panels in areas where significant challenges in sourcing substitution continue, bringing the total to 610 posts on 151 panels, covering approximately 2,800 schools.

The supply panels work alongside the existing methods of sourcing substitute teachers, such as Sub Seeker, the national substitution portal service operated by the Irish Primary Principals' Network and schools can also make local arrangements to have their own regular substitutes to call on if needed.

Newly qualified teachers (NQTs) will also represent a new source of supply in 2022/23. In excess of 3,400 primary and post-primary NQTs have had their registrations finalised by the Teaching Council to date with almost 40 further applications currently in progress. In addition, approximately 100 NQTs have registered with the Teaching Council under Route 4. Teachers registered under Route 4 are eligible for employment as a teacher in restricted school settings, i.e. in certain categories of special schools and in certain classes in mainstream schools where Irish is not a curricular requirement.

The Teaching Council also recently made regulations allowing for the registration of 3rd and 4th year undergraduate ITE students under a new registration route, Route 5 (Student Teachers). To date, in excess of 1,200 student teachers have registered with the Teaching Council with a further 70 applications still being processed. Once registered with the Council, such student teachers can be employed by a school to cover substitutable vacancies.

My Department will continue, with the cooperation of the education partners, to develop and implement measures to address challenges faced by schools and to support the supply of teachers to our schools.