Extra 610 special needs assistants approved for September

The Cabinet has approved more than 600 additional special needs assistant (SNA) posts following a request from Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan.

The Minister also announced a review of the SNA scheme will be carried out.

A delay in announcing SNA allocations for schools in 2015/16 had angered some schools and parents of children with special educational needs.

Ms O’Sullivan said up to 610 additional SNA posts would be allocated from September 2015 due to the rising number of children presenting with learning disabilities.

From September, there will be 11,820 full-time SNA posts available in primary and post-primary schools, she said.

“Every child with an assessed care need will receive access to SNA support. This is an important principle and will continue in the 2015/16 school year,” she said.

About 55 per cent of the additional posts will be provided to support students in mainstream classes while the remaining 45 per cent will serve students in special classes within mainstream schools or in special schools.

The review of the scheme will be carried out by the Department of Education and the National Council for Special Education (NCSE).

Among the issues to be examined will be the reasons behind the significant increase in demand this year and how the timing of applications and allocations can be better aligned with the school year.

Ms O’Sullivan said her department had recently issued a circular on the employment of SNAs. “This circular will go a long way to address concerns about casualisation and low hour contracts that have arisen within the profession,” she said.

She said a supplementary assignment panel process for SNAs, introduced two years ago, gave SNAs the alternative of redeployment instead of redundancy.

“Both measures will operate this summer, giving SNAs greater stability, and a better chance of a full-hours contract.”

Ms O’Sullivan’s announcement was welcomed by the Impact trade union.

Impact's deputy general secretaryKevin Callinan said the increase in the number of posts was welcome news both for SNAs and for the families of children with special education needs.

“This is exceptionally good news on a number of fronts. It provides a major boost for children with special education needs. It expands the existing service and will help to meet growing demand,” he said.