Minister for Education Mary Hanafin moved to remind all schools of their responsibilities to special needs pupils in a key address yesterday.
The Minister said the policy of excluding special needs pupils was not just an issue for some fee-paying schools. She also knew of several cases in towns all over the State where parents of special needs children were being advised to enrol their child in another school.
In the past, the Minister has accused some schools of evading their responsibilities and has signalled her readiness to impose sanctions on the offenders.
Yesterday, she said that while regulation remained an option, she would prefer schools to realise the huge positive benefits of enrolling special needs students. She said schools could not excuse their policies by pointing to a lack of resources. There are now some 2,200 special needs teachers, compared to 200 in 1998, at second level, she said.
Ms Hanafin was speaking at the annual conference of the Joint Managerial Body, representing more than 380 voluntary second-level schools, in Killarney, Co Kerry.
The debate on admission policies has intensified since a survey earlier this year indicated that provision for special needs students in Dublin was largely concentrated in disadvantaged areas. Some fee-paying schools surveyed had virtually no special needs provision.
The Department of Education figures indicated that up to 30 per cent of students in some poorer areas required special needs support.
