282. Deputy Eamon Scanlon asked the Minister for Education and Youth the criteria used to select schools for the rollout of the new dyslexia and literacy intervention programme; and whether a school (details supplied) will be considered for inclusion. [75254/26]

My Department has invested considerably in ensuring that all recognised mainstream schools have been allocated additional special education teaching resources to support children with special educational needs, including students with literacy difficulties.

There are 15,200 special education teachers allocated to primary and post-primary schools to enable them to support children with special educational needs.

Furthermore, there are four schools dedicated to supporting students with specific learning disability (SLD). There are also fourteen SLD classes in eleven mainstream primary schools located across the country, in counties Dublin, Clare, Louth, Galway, Kerry and Wexford.

However, I recognise that more needs to be done. I am happy to advise that my officials in conjunction with the NCSE are currently at an advanced stage in developing a pilot programme to test best practice and support policy formulation going forward.

The new initiative is intended to enable teachers who have completed an M.Ed in Specific Learning Difficulties in Dublin City University’s Institute of Education, support schools in their locality.

The pilot programme will see ten graduates of the Master of Education in Specific Learning Difficulties programme currently working in mainstream schools, support schools in their locality to develop the delivery of whole-school and targeted approaches to supporting learners who experience persistent and enduring difficulties in the acquisition of literacy skills. The pilot will be managed by the NCSE and the teachers will be assigned to the NCSE on an associate basis and will be available to work for twenty days over the course of a school year with schools in their locality.  This support will be provided with the agreement of the teacher’s board of management.  Substitute cover will be available to the base schools.

The NCSE completed a recruitment campaign for the ten posts. The location of the posts are determined by the successful teacher’s location. Each associate will support three schools. Participating schools will be required to commit to set up a core team and to allocate three hours of their Croke Park hours to literacy sustained support.

I expect to be in a position to announce the new pilot shortly.