Special needs teachers withdrawn from disadvantaged schools
After repeated promises to address the needs of disadvantaged children in primary schools, the Department of Education and Science has in fact removed special needs teachers from many disadvantaged schools in some of the most deprived areas of the country.
Under the new plan ("Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools") the department has allocated special needs teachers on the basis of enrolment figures rather than on needs as shown by psychological assessments.
Pat Courtney, principal of St Vincent's Boys' National School on North William Street, Dublin, says middle class schools in areas such as Foxrock in suburban Dublin have gained ten teachers under the new system, while the inner city of Dublin has had ten teachers withdrawn. This in the face of research that shows that over a quarter of Irish children in poorer areas are performing at the lowest literacy and numeracy levels.
Research on 12 disadvantaged schools in Dublin, Limerick and Cork has shown that these schools have three times more students with severe numeracy difficulties than the average school.
"In our reading and literacy scores at the end of the year, every child was in or around the average band or higher because of the reading recovery scheme. It provided them with one to one attention and there were dramatic improvements. The department will argue that we are still in that scheme, but we now don't have the teachers to target these children," says Mr Courtney.
For children to obtain learning support with a special needs teacher, they must first be assessed either by the National Education Psychology Service (NEPS) or by a private psychologist at their parents' or school's expense. But according to Seamus Long, the principal of St John the Baptist's Boys' School in the inner city of Limerick, waiting lists can extend to over 12 months, leaving children without the extra help that they need.
Inner city schools on Dorset Street and Sheriff Street in Dublin share similar fates. Both have lost special needs teachers and both rely on outside organisations to pay for children to be assessed for learning support. According to Greg Kerr, a teacher in a school on Dorset Street, their school has relied on St Vincent de Paul to provide funding to pay for private assessments.
Likewise, St Laurence O'Toole girls' national school in Sheriff Street – which has won football leagues without ever training on grass and encourages children to return home for lunch every day because of the inadequate school yard – has been reliant on a local planning board, The Docklands Authority, to foot the bill for private assessments.
Following the department's withdrawal of one teacher from the school, the principal continues to double up as a full time learning support teacher and they share a special needs teacher with another school.
Sean Mc Mahon, principal of Mullagh National School in West Clare said he was informed without prior consultation that the learning support teacher it shared with five schools, the resource teacher it shared with three schools and its own resource teacher would be reduced to one special needs teacher which it would have to share with another school.
President of the INTO John Carr has suggested to the Department that until a new plan to tackle education disadvantage is introduced, a freeze on job losses in disadvantaged schools should be implemented. The union also remains concerned at the Government's failure to fully staff the National Educational Psychological Service and is critical of the lack of speech and language therapists which is contributing to "unacceptably long" waiting lists.
"In the latter case, it is the Department of Health that is to blame. The failure to provide these children with urgently needed speech therapy is a disgrace. It is past time that a national speech and language therapy service was set up under the auspices of the Department of Education. Government must ensure that children get a service without having to rely on charitable organisations to provide them," said Mr Carr.
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