Minister Joe McHugh has welcomed the allocation of additional Resource Teachers to schools in Donegal to support children with Special Educational Needs
Minister McHugh said he welcomed today’s news from the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton T.D. of the allocation of 430 additional Resource Teachers to schools nationally to provide extra teaching support to children with special educational needs, with 12 new posts being allocated to Donegal schools.
The number of resource teachers has increased by 9% nationally in twelve months, reflecting the Government’s commitment to special education needs area.
This allocation of 430 posts now being made provides for a second round of allocations to schools, subsequent to the allocations which were made in advance of September 2016.
Resource Teachers are dedicated posts that support students with special educational needs and are additional to the mainstream class teacher.
The total number of Resource Teachers which have been allocated to schools by the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), for the 2016/17 school year, is now 7,429 posts. These posts will provide additional teaching support for over 47,000 pupils with low incidence disabilities who attend mainstream schools.
Minister McHugh, “Resource teachers are hugely important in providing the extra assistance needed for students with special educational needs, where they may work in the classroom with the child or withdraw the child to work in a one to one setting or in small groups with other children with resource hours. I am pleased that this extra allocation will assist in providing the additional teaching support needed for these pupils already enrolled or who have been assessed as having additional needs.”
Background
In June, Minister Bruton announced a 7% increase in the number of Special Needs Assistants, over a four month period this year. SNAs are a separate support for children with special educational needs.
In total, the number of Resource Teaching posts which have been allocated to schools by the NCSE has increased by 41% since 2011/12, when 5265 posts were allocated, compared to 7429 posts for the current school year. This increase is before the further increase of 900 Resource Teachers, announced in Budget 2017, takes effect in September 2017.
The allocation of 7429 posts represents an increase of almost 9%, or just over 600 posts above the allocation of 6822 posts made to schools at this time last year.
Details of the Resource Teaching allocations which have been made to each school, and on a per County basis, are available at the NCSE website www.ncse.ie
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