Minister of State for OPW and Flood Relief, Sean Canney TD, has welcomed the allocation of 430 additional resource teachers to schools to provide extra teaching support to children with special educational needs.
‘Resource teachers are dedicated posts that support students with special educational needs and are additional to the mainstream class teacher. The total number of resource teachers which have been allocated to schools by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), for the 2016/17 school year, is now 7,429 posts. These posts will provide additional teaching support for over 47,000 pupils with low incidence disabilities who attend mainstream schools. The allocation of 430 posts now being made, provides for a second round of allocations to schools, subsequent to the allocations which were made in advance of September 2016.
‘This Government’s basic aim is to use our economic progress to deliver a fair society. Our supports for children with special educational needs is at the very heart of this effort.
‘Resource teachers play a vital role in providing for the educational needs of students with special educational needs. This substantial additional allocation of resources will meet the needs of students with Special Educational Needs who have been enrolled in schools, or who have been assessed as having additional needs, since the first round of allocations which was made in May of this year.’
‘The allocation of 7,429 posts represents an increase of almost nine percent, or just over 600 posts above the allocation of 6,822 posts made to schools at this time last year.
In June, Minister for Education and Skills Richard Bruton TD announced a seven percent increase in the number of Special Needs Assistants, over a four month period this year. SNAs are a separate support for children with special educational needs.
In total, the number of Resource Teaching posts which have been allocated to schools by the NCSE has increased by 41 percent since 2011/12, when 5,265 posts were allocated, compared to 7,429 posts for the current school year. This increase is before the further increase of 900 resource teachers, announced in Budget 2017, takes effect in September 2017.
‘Details of the Resource Teaching allocations which have been made to each school, and on a per County basis, are available at the NCSE website www.ncse.ie’