Written answer
School Staff
The Department lacks centrally recorded special-education teacher vacancies; individual schools recruit, while NCSE publishes allocations and recruitment support remains a priority.
482. Deputy Shónagh Ní Raghallaigh asked the Minister for Education and Youth the number of vacancies for special education teachers currently recorded across primary and post-primary schools; and the measures being taken to address recruitment challenges in this area. [64144/26]
Comment on this
This government is fully committed to supporting students with special educational needs to fulfil their full potential and the Programme for Government makes a number of commitments to deliver on this objective.
The primary responsibility for the education of all pupils in primary schools, including those with special education learning needs, is the class teacher. Special education teachers provide additional teaching support to students in mainstream classes with an identified and recorded special educational learning needs in the student support plan aligned with the Continuum of Support framework.
The Special Education Teaching (SET) Allocation Model is a standardised allocation model that provides schools with additional teaching hours to support the teaching needs of students in mainstream classes based on the school’s profile of need.
It is important to understand that SET Resources are allocated as a whole school resource and not to individual pupils.
Each school must adhere to Circular 0064/2024 The operation/application and deployment of Special Education Teacher resources by ensuring that their SET allocation is deployed based on the student support plan for pupils and ensuring that those pupils with the greatest level of identified and recorded need receive the greatest level of learning support based on the Continuum of Support Framework.
The NCSE published the SET allocation for each school on their website by county and the allocations for 2026/27 school year can be accessed at: the www.ncse.ie/ncse/data-and-statistics/set-hours-special-class-teachers-and-sna-allocations/
My department has no role in the recruitment of special education teachers. The recruitment process resides in individual schools, and the board of management has responsibility for filling the allocated posts. Therefore, the information requested is only available in the individual school.
My department and the NCSE are committed to delivering an education system that is of the highest quality and where every child and young person feels valued and is actively supported and nurtured to achieve their full potential.