‘Special needs students being denied’

SPECIAL needs and disadvantaged students are being denied proper teaching because of Government restrictions, teachers warned last night.

The Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) says more than one-third of schools have not been given enough resource teachers to work with special needs students.

The schools made the applications on the basis of recommendations from Department of Education psychologists since last September. But 46 of the 121 principals responding to a survey said they had been refused the full complement of resource teacher hours they needed.