LABOUR TD KENNY WELCOMES 91 NEW CLASSES FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Posted on August 22, 2012 5:43 PM   |   Permanent Link   

Dublin Bay North Labour TD Seán Kenny has welcomed today's announcement of 91 new classes for children with special needs.

"This is great news for the over 500 children and their families who want their children who may have autism or specific speech and language disorder to be educated in mainstream primary and post primary schools."

"I have suipported inclusive education for a long time and I am delighted to see this news. In particular I am very pleased that one of these classes is to be located in Holy Trinity Senior National School in Donaghmede."

"These new classes will bring the total number of specialised classes to 640 throughout Ireland which support the education of 3,700 children with special needs. Such classes are designed for those with specific needs who cannot be educated within a mainstream class, but can benefit from being part of a main-stream school, getting the benefit of both worlds - low student-teacher ratio and high social peer interaction."

"This announcement is in no small way down to the fact that the government has maintained funding of €1.3 billion annually for special needs education, and has also preserved SNA and resource teacher levels. Labour in government is protecting the vulnerable in society, and is doing so despite the very difficult economic environment. The announcement of these classes today demonstrates this."