Primary learning support teachers cut [RTE]
- Published: 11 February 2009
Source: RTE
The Department of Education is to cut special teacher support for up to 900 primary school children with learning disabilities.
It has instructed more than a 100 schools to shut down special classes for children with mild learning disabilities because pupil numbers have fallen below the required level.
In all 128 special teaching posts will be lost affecting children in 119 schools across the country.
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Some children are eligible to attend a special class because they have been diagnosed with a disability which makes learning very difficult for them.
The Department of Education has written to these schools, some of them disadvantaged schools, instructing them to discontinue their special classes from next September.
It says they no longer have the number of eligible pupils required to retain a teacher for this purpose.
The INTO has called it an outrageous dismantling of the special education infrastructure, committed only for financial reasons.
