The National Educational Psychological Service

The National Educational Psychological Service (NEPS) currently provides psychological services to both primary and post-primary schools, State and private, with children normally referred to the service through the school principal.

Only approximately 60 per cent of schools are covered by the service, however, with those schools that are not included in NEPS permitted to engage the services of external psychologists.

This is done on a quota basis. Schools are allowed to have one student in every 100 assessed. The costs involved are, eventually, reimbursed to them by the Department.

However, last January it was revealed that the budget for this service expired at the end of 2003. As a result, psychologists providing outside assessments of schoolchildren with special needs were, albeit temporarily, unable to take on any new students.

A psychologist can make as many recommendations as he or she likes with regard to the number of hours of special needs teaching a child might require. However, the Department of Education allocates hours based upon a departmental circular that sets down strict limits on the hours a student can be allocated, according to his or her particular needs. This applies both to primary and post-primary schools.

Critics say that such a "one size fits all" approach sometimes serves to minimise the cost of providing the necessary teaching hours to those who most need it, by allowing little lee-way for individual circumstances.

However, the Department is currently examining ways to alter the current system to allow for a "weighted" approach, with schools allocated resources according to the normal incidence of special needs requirements in the wider population.

Another major issue for second-level schools is the fact that students moving from primary to second level need to be re-assessed.

Schools argue that the validity of assessments should be extended, or at least used when applying for resources before a new assessment takes place.

Arguably the biggest problem with NEPS lies in the relatively low numbers of psychologists it employs. The service currently employs 125 psychologists, compared with original plans for up to 200, with the result that many NEPS psychologists are overstretched, sometimes serving 30 schools or more. This has meant plans for psychologists to work with teachers to help them meet different types needs in the classroom have, by and large, had to be shelved.

Such plans would include, for example, provision for a school to assess pupils themselves, as a stop-gap measure until a full NEPS evaluation, the prerequisite for special needs allocation, can be carried out.

Instead of working with teachers to introduce such plans, however, many NEPS psychologists have found themselves forced to focus their efforts on clearing the huge backlog in assessments.