Sir, – Thank you for highlighting the situation in relation to the special educational needs of children ("Affluent areas receive more special needs teaching hours", Front Page, September 8th).
As the principal of a school with more than 400 pupils in Co Kildare, the county with the seventh-lowest allocation of resource hours, I despair with regard to the present system.
The National Council for Special Educational has turned out to be the most ruthless gatekeeper for preventing children from getting their needed resources.
The amount of teacher time spent jumping through bureaucratic hoops to get through that gate and secure hours is a waste of the precious teaching time that children need.
Consider how much more usefully the time of professionals could be spent thinking creatively and advising teachers on how they could adapt their teaching for the needs of the children instead of labelling them unnecessarily.
The Department of Education and Science know the implications of the “new model” for schools that currently have a disproportionate number of resource teachers. However, rather than cause any political turmoil in the run-up to the election, it invented a pilot programme to delay the implementation of that new model. A pilot scheme that represents another year of languishing in educational failure for those children, who desperately need resource teaching sooner rather than later, is the most cynical of actions dressed up as research.
Unless every citizen with a vote stands up for these children when candidates come canvassing for votes, the constant foot-dragging and lack of investment in the resources to meet the clearly identified impediments to children’s education will continue.
With the right supports these children could develop educationally; without them they languish. – Yours, etc,
BRYAN O’REILLY,
Principal,
Scoil Mhuire
Junior Primary School,
Ballymany,
Newbridge, Co Kildare.