Education

National Council for Special Education

The National Council for Special Education was set up to improve the delivery of education services to persons with special educational needs arising from disabilities with particular emphasis on children.
The Council allocates additional teaching and other resources available to support the special educational needs of children with disabilities. Special Educational Needs Organisers (SENOs) are now dealing with applications for additional teaching and Special Needs Assistant support for children with special educational needs from all schools. They are currently issuing decisions and explaining the reasoning behind these to schools directly.

SENOs deal with the following resource allocation functions:

  • Processing applications from all schools for resource teacher support in respect of children with low-incidence disabilities such as moderate general learning disabilities, visual or hearing impairments, physical disabilities or autism, and deciding on the level of support appropriate to the school
  • Processing applications from second-level schools for resource teacher support in respect of children with high-incidence disabilities such as mild general learning disability and deciding on the level of support appropriate to the school
  • Processing applications from schools and deciding on the appropriate level of special needs assistant support for children with disabilities
  • Examining applications from all schools for special equipment/assistive technology
  • Examining applications from schools for transport arrangements for children with disabilities and making recommendations to the Department of Education & Science
  • Identifying the appropriate educational setting for individual children with special educational needs

The Council is also beginning a research programme so as to provide on-going advice to the Minister for Education and Science on the best way forward for Special Education policy.

State Examination Commission

The State Examinations Commission was established by statutory order on the 6th March 2003. The new Commission is responsible for the operation of the certificate examinations from 2003 onwards.
The website address for the State Examinations Commission website is http://www.examinations.ie and they can be contacted by email at info@examinations.ie
Exam text and Braille papers are now on CD and can be obtained though your visiting teacher or The Reasonable Accommodation Section of the State Examinations Commission Tel: 090 644 2781/2.
State Examination Commission,
Cornamaddy
Athlone
Co. Westmeath
Tel: 090 644 2700

Ahead

AHEAD, the Association for Higher Education Access and Disability, is an independent non-profit organisation working to promote full access to and participation in third level education for students with disabilities in Ireland.
AHEAD and FEACH, had for some time been concerned that blind and visually impaired students were not making progress into and through third level education at the pace which might have been expected. For this reason, AHEAD commissioned research exploring the factors influencing the enrolment of blind and visually impaired students in third level education.
“Seeing AHEAD: a study of the factors affecting blind and vision impaired students going on to third level” launched by AHEAD on the 19th June 2008.
Click here to download the report in PDF format

AHEAD,
East Hall,
University College Dublin,
Carysfort Avenue,
Blackrock, Co. Dublin.
Tel 01 – 716 4396
ahead@ahead.ie
http://www.aheadweb.org/home/pages/show/227