Special needs cuts - Priorities seriously questionable

The Government’s system of priorities must be seriously questioned when it continues to target the weaker sections of the community. Today the Dáil will be discussing a Fine Gael motion in relation to the cutting of special needs classes.

Back in February, Education Minister Batt O’Keeffe announced that 128 classes for children with mild general learning disabilities would be cut in 119 schools around the country, because there will not be the necessary nine children with the needs to form such classes in those schools. Fine Gael is suggesting that classes be merged with neighbouring schools in order to generate sufficient numbers.

The minister, on the other hand, is advocating that students with special needs should be amalgamated with their peers in regular classes. Most children with learning disabilities join their own age group for general subjects such as physical education, art and religious studies, but they benefit from greater attention and help in special classes.

Scrapping those classes has the makings of another fine mess. It will end up penalising the children with special needs by denying them the specialised assistance they require, and penalise the other students by slowing up the classes. Quality education is being sacrificed. For what? To save €7.5 million out of the department’s annual budget of €9 billion? In the long run, it will not save money but cost more.

The city and county vocational education committees (VECs) manage around 240 second-level schools as well as the Youthreach programme and adult education service. While teaching vacancies generated by teachers retiring from regular posts within the VECs will be filled, the vacancies in Youthreach and the adult education services are being treated differently.

Youthreach facilitates early school-leavers, while adult education services and back-to-school schemes serve adults trying to improve their skills in order to enhance their chances of getting work. Vacancies in those programmes will not be filled.

The Department of Education has announced, for instance, that the Department of Finance will not approve replacements for three vacancies among the 33 adult education officers. During the recent educational conferences the Minister for Education called for understanding because there is a difficult balancing act confronting the Government. Everyone realises that there must be cuts in public spending.

Cutting services to the most vulnerable and most disadvantaged may seem like the soft option, but it will fuel the growing public cynicism. It does not take courage to attack the weak and the vulnerable.

Those who posture as supposedly acting courageously while attacking the most vulnerable and marginalised segments of society are not only deluding themselves, they are also insulting the intelligence of the people. In a democracy, those who make such mistakes inevitably learn the hard way.