Resource teaching hours to be retained
The 455 posts sanctioned by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) will allow pupils continue to receive 85% of the weekly hours recommended by the Department of Education in 2005. However, after hundreds more teachers were allocated for pupils with disabilities for the rest of this school year, those staff will have to be spread more thinly in schools where children are assessed as needing support after the first three weeks of the term.
After a week of public pressure in June, Mr Quinn reversed plans to reduce that provision to 75% when the Cabinet allowed him to breach a limit on the number of resource teachers the NCSE can sanction.
