Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 23 April 2026
73. Deputy Grace Boland asked the Minister for Education and Youth how the application process for special education teaching hours is administered by her Department, including how allocations to individual schools are determined and how the needs profile of a school is reflected in the final allocation; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [28417/26]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis government is fully committed to supporting children 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 mainstream class teacher has primary responsibility for the progress and care of all children in their classrooms, including children with additional learning needs.
The Special Education Teacher (SET) is an additional resource provided to all mainstream schools to support students with an identified additional learning need based on the Continuum of support framework
SET Allocations for all mainstream schools for 2026/27 were advised to schools in March 2026 as part of the general staffing allocations, in excess of 15,200 SET teachers will be available in mainstream classes in 2026/27 to support pupils with identified and recorded additional learning needs.
The 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.
The SET allocation model has three pillars:
• Enrolment Allocation - The total enrolment in the school which is sourced from the Primary Online or Post Primary Online Database.
• Educational Teaching Needs Profile – This is derived from the literacy and numeracy profile of the school as demonstrated by the STen scores for English/Irish and Maths reported by the school. In the case of post primary schools it is the Junior cycle data that is utilised.
• Educational Disadvantage –The key data source is the Pobal HP Index for Small Areas, which is a method of measuring the relative affluence or disadvantage of a particular geographical area, combined with pupil data from POD.
Further detail in relation to the operation and calculation of the model is published in assets.gov.ie/static/documents/circular-00022024.pdf
