More resources needed for special needs schoolchildren

Sinn Féin's EU candidate for the South constituency David Cullinane, says more resources are needed to help school children with special needs.

He was reacting on Tuesday to an announcement by Minister Dempsey to employ 350 new teachers across the state to cater for children with special needs. The proposal was unveiled as the Irish National Teachers‚ Organisation (INTO) met at their annual conference in Tralee, County Kerry.

"Today's announcement by Minister Dempsey is a much needed boost to the education sector," he said. "However, it is very clear that more resources are needed to help schoolchildren with special needs. The INTO has estimated that 1,000 teachers are required to meet the shortfall, so we are still a considerable distance off ensuring that children with special needs are catered for.

"More than 6,000 pupils whose needs have been identified for over a year are not getting any extra support in school. There are thousands of others whose needs have not yet been formally assessed due to a shortage of psychologists and other services. The National Education Psychological Service (NEPS) is chronically under funded and incapable of carrying out its mandates. Huge sections of the state, particularly in the west and north, are not covered at all.

"There is also an urgent need for administration posts in schools. 75% of school principals are also full-time teachers and the burdens of education, in particular dealing with special needs education are enormous. As my colleague Seán Crowe made clear in the debate on the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill 2003, principals do not have the administrative resources to serve those children with special needs as it stands, let alone after the Bill becomes law and the administrative workload massively increases.

"Whilst these teaching appointments are a welcome first step, it is long overdue, minimalist and fails to tackle the administration problem that is severely hampering the ability of principals to deal with special education needs."

Community the key to ending intimidation of teachers

Sinn Féin Leinster House spokesperson on Education, Seán Crowe, has been attending the teachers' conferences over the past number of days. One of the main issues arising out of discussions with teachers and union members has been the problem of school discipline.

Crowe expressed his concern about the serious level of abuse and even violence directed at teachers. He considers the problem to be a direct reflection of similar problems within communities at large.

The Sinn Féin TD has learnt of incidents where teachers have had pellet guns fired at them and even an incident where a pregnant teacher had stones thrown at her car as she was leaving the school premises. "We need greater community participation in the running of schools," he said. "It is only through this broader community participation can we address the discipline issue from both inside and outside schools."

Another difficulty addressed by Crowe is the culture of silence amongst teachers on this issue. "No teacher wants to expose negative feedback regarding their own school," he said. "But unfortunately, such a code of silence is unhelpful. We need a more open approach to the whole problem of school discipline and I welcome the Minister's readiness to get into discussions with the unions on the issue."