Special needs - Education is sacrosanct

It is to be profoundly welcomed that cuts to special-needs teaching for more seriously disabled children may now be unnecessary. The Department of Education can let 100 extra teachers be employed in this area.

Instead of sharing special-needs teaching hours among a rising number of pupils next year, as had been feared, the department is also instructing schools to contact other schools in their area to see if they have any spare resource teaching hours. Thus, where spare special teaching resources arise, these will be shared among neighbouring schools.

There are still fears, however, that this might be at the expense of resources for other pupils with more common difficulties, such as dyslexia. They were catered for under the general allocation model, introduced in 2005. It is now to be reviewed.