Principal: SNA cuts make policy ‘pointless’

GOVERNMENT policy of integrating children with special needs into mainstream schools will be pointless if there are more cuts to staff helping them in class, a principals’ leader warned yesterday.

Hundreds of special needs assistants (SNAs) who help with physical and behavioural difficulties of thousands of pupils have been made redundant this weekend, in a move described yesterday by Irish Primary Principals Network (IPPN) director Sean Cottrell as a ruthless culling.

Almost 1,200 of the 10,500 SNA positions could be axed as a result of a review at 4,000 schools, according to preliminary figures from the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) last summer.