Minister's warning over special-needs challenge

Every school in the country must rise to the challenge of educating students with special needs or English language difficulties, it was warned today.

Minister for Education Mary Hanafin admitted the Government’s record on the issue of special needs had until recent years been poor and insisted that the provision of extra supports for children with special needs was close to her heart.

“There are now more than 1,600 teachers in our second level schools working specifically with students with special needs, compared to just 200 a few years ago. Alongside them are more than 1,000 Special Needs Assistants.

"And as more children with special needs enter second level, extra staff will be provided to meet their needs,” she told the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) annual meeting.

Special needs, English language difficulties, class sizes and school discipline were raised at the annual meetings of the teachers trade unions – the ASTI, the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO).

In response to calls for extra staff and resources from the teachers’ unions, Ms Hanafin confirmed an additional 1,500 primary school teachers have been employed over the past year to help cater for children with special needs.

She told the annual INTO congress in Killarney, Co Kerry, that the extra teachers were targeted at providing extra support for children with special needs, those from disadvantaged areas and children who need help with their English.

“These additional teachers have made an immeasurable difference to the lives of all these children and are also providing vital backup for classroom teachers in helping these children,” she told primary school teachers gathered in Killarney.

“If we had just put these extra teachers into classrooms instead of into these priority areas they would have done a lot to reduce class size in our schools. But then we wouldn’t have been able to put the resources that were needed into special education, disadvantage and language support.”

The Government was heavily criticised last week after a survey revealed thousands of youngsters with learning difficulties were awaiting psychiatric assessment.

“There is no doubt that the record of the state over decades in supporting children with special needs was very poor and that we have really only risen to this challenge in recent years,” she said.

“However, remarkable progress has been made and indeed there are now more than 5000 teachers – or a fifth of the entire primary teaching force – working specifically with children with special needs and learning difficulties. And alongside them are 6000 special needs assistants.”

Ms Hanafin said 3,400 extra teachers have been employed in schools since 2002 and 500 more teachers were being hired for next September to reduce class size.

The minister told the teachers gathered that a strategy to cater for the needs of non-English speaking children was being developed.

The TUI annual conference issued a list of recommendations essential for meeting the challenge of dealing with the increasing number of foreign students.

The union called for a standardised test customised for Irish schools to ascertain the foreign students’ level of English. The conference in Tralee, Co Kerry, heard some teachers are not properly trained in teaching English as a second language.

Ms Hanafin told primary school teachers the number of staff employed in the Garda Central Vetting Unit was being doubled to allow vetting to be extended on a phased basis to all people who have unsupervised access to children in schools.

It also emerged behavioural support teams are being recruited to work with schools and teachers facing disruptive students.

“Recruitment has already commenced for a new behavioural support service which will be structured in four regional teams.

"As well as having experienced teachers who have an excellent record in promoting positive student behaviour in their own schools, each team will also have a psychologist,” she said.

“The teams will work with about 50 schools in the first year, helping them to identify the cause of their difficulties and put in place effective procedures to deal with it.”

But she said she did not want to make it too easy to expel disruptive students from schools.