Executive-led programme urged to tackle spiralling demand for special education

By Rebecca Black (PA)

An Executive-led programme is needed to tackle spiralling demand for special education, Stormont Education Minister Paul Givan has said.

The recent start of the latest school year has seen another struggle to accommodate all those with special educational need (SEN).

Mr Givan said 20% (70,000) of pupils in Northern Ireland are registered as having SEN, while the number with a statement of SEN has risen by an unprecedented 85% in ten years to almost 30,000 pupils.

“In terms of specialist places the number of pupils attending a special school has increased by 47% in the same period (ten years), and the number of children in specialist provision classes in our mainstream schools by no less than 169%,” he told MLAs.

He said his department has invested £110 million in the last two years to provide 242 new specialist provision classes, and 98 additional classrooms across the special school estate.

But he said numbers will increase still further for the next decade, describing the scale of demand as “staggering”, with almost 6,000 additional special school places and more than 5,000 additional specialist provision places to be needed.

Mr Givan described being at a “pivotal moment” and urged all the parties across the Northern Ireland Assembly to support his bid for an Executive-led effort.

Making a statement to MLAs on Tuesday, Mr Givan said action is needed now, describing a “central challenge facing our education system and our society”.

“This is not a challenge for one department alone, it is a challenge for the Executive as a whole,” he said.

“Today I seek the Assembly’s support for an Executive-led and funded SEN capital investment programme, one that will revolutionise the facilities available to our children and young people.

“The choice facing the Executive is stark, without decisive action across Government, the system risks failing the very children it is meant to protect.

“Our special schools have reached capacity, many are housed in outdated, deteriorating buildings, spaces that lack adequate therapy rooms, and fall short of the standards required to deliver modern holistic care.

“All straightforward special school solutions have been exhausted, the vast majority of special schools do not have any physical internal or external space for further development and new special schools and dual campus sites at existing schools are therefore required across Northern Ireland.”

He added: “We are at a pivotal moment, a fork in the road.

“Working closely with my department the Education Authority has today published comprehensive plans to expand, modernise and transform our special schools estate.

“But this vision can only be realised with significant dedicated capital investment.

“Without an Executive-funded programme we will remain trapped in a cycle of emergency planning, unable to provide the specialist facilities that every child deserves.

“I cannot plan, build or deliver these facilities children need without additional annual earmarked capital funding from the Executive.”

The Education Minister Paul Given