A recent report from the Ombudsman for Children’s Office (OCO) has found that the education department is failing children with special educational needs. This is due to lack of suitable school places, especially in Dublin and Cork.

In his summary analysis of the OCO report, Fórsa education organiser Dylan Archbold said the report followed complaints from parents unable to find suitable local school places for their children with special education needs.

Dylan said parents had complained about the lack of places in Dublin, Cork, and Clare.

“The report highlights a significant lack of centralised data to indicate an accurate figure of how many children require appropriate school placement," he said.

A 2011 ESRI study estimates that the level of the student population with SEN is 25%. The OCO backs this estimate, although the relatively dated research again highlights the acute lack of centralised data,” he said.

Dylan said that while the education department has pointed to additional resource allocations in recent years, including more special needs assistant (SNA) posts, it overlooks delays in producing annual allocations for SNAs. This also causes unnecessary stress and anxiety amongst SNAs.

The report calls for more Government oversight and highlights the issues which arise from the level of autonomy given the individual schools.

“The report also recommends that the Department of Education gathers data on the number of children with special educational needs and publishes this data annually.

“The Ombudsman is firmly of the view that legislative underpinning for the special educational needs of children is vital to ensuring that children’s needs are identified, resourced, and met in a timely and appropriate manner. It also recommends consideration of whether new legislation is required to ensure that individual educational plans for children with SEN are rights-based, child-centred and inclusive,” said Dylan.

You can read Dylan’s analysis of the report HERE. The full report, ‘Plan for Places’, can be found at the following HERE.