Brendan Smith: Change the 6-Pupil Threshold for Special Classes

We move to other members' questions. I call on Deputy Brendan Smith. Thank you, Aicheann Comhairle. Taoiseach, previously in this House I welcomed the substantial and much-needed increased investment in special education. The establishment of additional special classes and ASD units and additional staffing resources is a positive development in the overall education provision in our country. More investment is needed in establishing more special classes. I commend the work of Minister Moynihan and Minister Nocton, and I know the Chief Executive of the NCSE, John Kearney, and his colleagues are also very determined to make more progress in this area. Aontaoiseach may recall that previously I raised with him and with other members of government the inequity existing with the disadvantages suffered by smaller schools due to the difficulty they have in reaching the required enrolment threshold for special classes. As I pointed out previously, this inequity impacts severely on schools that are under the patronage of the smaller churches. Generally, those schools have small enrolments. This enrolment threshold also impacts severely on the other smaller schools, which in most instances are rural and sometimes in remote areas. We are all aware of children having to travel too far to access a special class. That's far from ideal for the pupil or parents. I appeal again for the enrolment threshold to be amended. A new model or system in relation to the establishment of special classes is needed now. That is necessary to properly support smaller schools and schools under the patronage of the Protestant and smaller churches. Those smaller schools want to cater in the best possible way for all their pupils. The legitimate interests of those schools must be addressed. Children need to be facilitated with appropriate school placements as near their home as possible and with their siblings if at all possible. Regrettably, the present model has detrimental effects on our smaller schools. I am aware of instances where families who have a child in a special class transfer a sibling or siblings to the school with the special class, which is the larger school. Pupils leaving their own catchment area can impact on the viability of a small school in the longer term. I fully understand the strong and legitimate wish of parents to have their children attend the same primary school. There must be an alternative way of improving access to local schools. If additional resources are needed, they should be provided. In rolling out the much-needed additional investment in special education, the Department must ensure that those welcome decisions and measures do not cause problems long term for our smaller schools and actually, in some instances, threaten the very viability of those small schools. Again, we cannot emphasise strongly enough the need to have siblings attend the same school. I know this is something that he has worked tirelessly on to improve. The current threshold of six pupils for a special class at primary level with one teacher and two SNAs was introduced back in 1998, when I happened to be Minister for Education and Science. It was the first time we introduced a model of this kind and brought SNAs into mainstream education. Since then, that model has supported enormous expansion of special education provision. Your point, of course, is that it may not always work for small rural schools. You have identified the issue of siblings and families attending their local school. We do not want a situation where children with additional needs should have to travel unduly long distances either, simply because their local school cannot reach a threshold. The concern is a specific one. It is a legitimate one. Probably, the Department needs to look at it and identify the scale of it or what are the issues and how one would go about dealing with that. Your point is that if a small rural school cannot reach the enrolment threshold of six children with additional needs, those children may be denied a local placement, forcing families to deal with long daily journeys, often separating children from their siblings in the same school. That is an additional burden on families. The preference has been for the NCSE and the Department to consider opening new special classes in medium and larger primary schools. The issue in smaller primary schools has been more challenging. Of the 504 new special classes sanctioned so far by the NCSE for the coming school year, 330 of these are at primary level. Of these 330 new special classes at primary level, over one third, that is 139, are opening in primary schools with eight teachers or less. Of those, 69 are opening in primary schools with four teachers or less. That is a significant number in itself. We do need to drill down on the detail of this to try to identify the need and what potentially the response could be. This demonstrates the NCSE will sanction special classes in our small primary schools where there is a level of need and there are schools with available accommodation and a willingness to open a new special class. Furthermore, the new inclusive special class model introduced this year is an example of an innovative step in this space, allowing 12 students to be supportive of an existing special classroom where space is constrained. As of now, and in and of itself, it may not meet your point about the rural school threshold, but the inclusive special class model is a more innovative approach and that may provide a route to trying to deal with the issues that you have identified. It would take a bit more working out, but I think that may provide some opportunities into the future. Thank you for your reply. I mentioned to you before the case of Cavan No. 1 National School in Cavantown, which is under the patronage of the Church of Ireland. It has done exceptional work in providing a top-quality education for children from different denominations and from different nationalities. Inclusion is at the very heart of all school activities, and the work of the Principal, Sabrina Richardson, and her staff colleagues, and the Board of Management is to be strongly commended. The Principal has outlined in great detail to the NCSE and to the Department of Education the urgent need they have for a special class. This school has also been waiting far, far too long for approval from the Department for basic improvement works, which are urgently needed. I ask you Taoiseach to use your good offices to request the Department to give urgent consideration to finalising and issue approval for both of those applications, namely for the establishment of special class and for the emergency works. Taoiseach, you may recall in 2011 or 12, you and I and Mike and mine and others campaigned very strongly against the proposal by the then Minister of Education to change the pupil-teacher ratio, which would have impacted very, very strongly. Deputy Taoiseach, to respond. Taoiseach, please. Smith, Taoiseach will respond. Way over. Again, I thank Deputy Smith on this one in terms of the Church of Ireland School in Cavantown and the special class issue. I'm conscious Minister Moynihan is here in the Chamber as well, so I take it he'll have taken on board what you have said. On the emergency works application, there were some issues apparently with the current proposal, as it was well in excess of the minimum scope under the EWS. However, the Department of Education and Youth Emergency Works Scheme team will now work with the school to provide a solution that addresses the root issue the school is experiencing and hope for flexibility there and to resolve that issue for the school and on the special class I hope and I'll talk to the Minister Moynihan and Minister Hildegard Nocton with a view to making sure that we can maybe meet positively the requests from the school in terms of the special class. Thank you, Taoiseach.