TUI warns schools facing special needs ‘avalanche’

THE second-level school system faces an avalanche of students with special needs but does not have the resources to offer the supports they require, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has claimed.

Since the Government introduced a policy of integrating all children with learning difficulties and physical disabilities in 1997, the numbers of special needs pupils in mainstream primary schools has spiralled. In line with those increases, the Department of Education now has thousands of resource teachers and other staff working specifically with them.

But, according to TUI education and research officer John MacGabhann, the bulk of those children will begin transferring to second level in the next few years.