Reverse cuts to disability teaching hours, demands union

Schools should have a 15% cut to extra teaching for pupils with disabilities reversed while they wait for a new system of allocating special needs staff, a union has claimed.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation made the claim as Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan gave details of the 47 primary and second-level schools that are piloting a new system to decide how many additional teachers are given to cater for pupils with a range of special educational needs.

It should mean schools no longer need a child to have a diagnosed disability before being provided with set weekly hours of resource teaching, as currently happens. However, the new model, first proposed 15 months ago, is not guaranteed to be in place for September 2016.