TUI under fire over claims ‘designer’ difficulties help pupils skip Irish

PARENTS and supporters of children with dyslexia have hit out at suggestions that pupils opting out of Irish are using ‘designer’ learning difficulties to get exemptions.

New figures from the Department of Education have revealed a surge in secondary school students gaining exemptions from studying Irish.

Some 9,907 pupils with learning difficulties were granted exemptions in 2004, 11,172 in 2005 and 11,871 in 2006. In all three years over half of those pupils went on to study at least one modern European language.

The figures are separate from exempt pupils who lived or went to school abroad.

It was reported yesterday that the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) had noted a rise in ‘designer difficulties’ among children whose parents could afford psychological reports for exemptions.

Union assistant secretary general John MacGabhann said there was a breach in logic in more than half of pupils still studying a European language despite having difficulties with Irish.

But parents insisted exemptions were genuine, and sons’ and daughters’ difficulties were not just being paid for with special reports.

The National Parents’ Council Post Primary’s Rose Tully said: “A psychologist would not make a recommendation unless they feel a child would benefit from an exemption.”

Ms Tully admitted it was “strange” how children exempt from Irish went on to study European languages. It was not a case, however, of students getting “willy nilly” exemptions.

The Dyslexia Association’s director Anne Hughes dismissed the TUI’s comments.

“If you call it a ‘designer difficulty’ you automatically impugn every psychologist who does assessments.

“Money doesn’t come into it because you can’t really buy a psychologist no matter what money you have.”

Ms Hughes put the increased numbers of students exempt from studying Irish down to the increased awareness of learning difficulties.

But principals, who must sign off on exemption applications before they are submitted to the Department of Education, have admitted coming under pressure to allow students to opt out of studying the subject.

“There seems to be an inordinately high incident of dyslexia in Ireland compared to other countries,” said Clive Byrne, director of the National Association of Principals & Deputy Principals.

“Most cases are genuine, but I’m sure some are borderline. In some instances, and this is where the middle class phenomena comes in, people feel that if they’re paying €500 or €600 for a psychological assessment, you get the assessment that you want,” he added.

The Department of Education yesterday said that what pupils studied was “a matter for the student and his or her parents in consultation with the school principal in the context of the students overall educational needs”.

The department said about half of the exempt students in post-primary received exemptions at primary level.