'No rationale' for having 6% of students in 'separate' special schools

'Since 2011, we’ve committed to having new special schools co-located with mainstream schools. We have developed separate special schools. You could argue there was a strong rationale for that back in the 1950s and 1960s; there absolutely is not anymore.'

Ireland is heading towards having up to 6% of the student population in separate specialist education, a “highly problematic” trajectory, an expert in inclusive education has warned.

Professor Joe Travers of the Dublin City University (DCU) Centre for Inclusive Pedagogy was speaking at the Oireachtas education committee.

Ireland has ratified Article 24 of the UNCRPD (UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), and the UN has “spelled out” the trajectory that countries need to take in terms of “realising a full inclusive system”, Mr Travers said.

“We embraced that approach, through the Government acceptance of the National Council for Special Education [NCSE] advice,” he added.

“However, we have a total mismatch between our adherence to that advice and actual policy implementation at the moment.” 

Ireland has gone from a position where under 2% of the student population was in separate, specialist provision, he said. “1% in special classes, and 1% in special schools. That internationally was really, really good.”

“However, we are now heading towards 5% [to] 6% of the student population in separate provision, be it special classes or special schools.” 

Mr Travers added special classes were "aligned" with mainstream schools. 

“There is the potential there for the evolvement of that model to become more inclusive than it is. There’s evidence that it's a fairly rigid model at the moment.” 

But the development of 16 new separate, special schools is “highly problematic” in terms of Ireland’s commitment to inclusive education, he added.

“Since 2011, we’ve committed to having new special schools co-located with mainstream schools. We have developed separate special schools. You could argue there was a strong rationale for that back in the 1950s and 1960s; there absolutely is not anymore.” 

We’re bussing children huge distances to these schools; we’re reducing opportunities for peer interaction.

Special schools do retain a lot of children in the system that “have been failed by the mainstream system”, he added.

“However, the research suggests they leave the mainstream system ‘off the hook’ in terms of changing. As long as you have a continuum, which has separate special schools, unfortunately there is an incentive built into the system to move children out of it.”

“What’s happening is that there’s a certain amount of energy being used within schools to engineer the movement of children out, as against being solutions focused and saying ‘what do we need to do so this child thrives in this setting?’”

He added: “The aim has to be around building the general education system so it's responsive to the full diversity of the needs in the human family. That has to be our vision, and unfortunately at the moment we are on a very different trajectory of separate, specialist provision, which is highly problematic.”