History of Special Needs Provision in Ireland
Swan (2000) described special needs education in Ireland in three phases, the neglect and denial, the special needs school and the integration or inclusion. The national Education System was first set up in 1831 making it compulsory for all children from age six to fourteen. By 1892 children had to go to school for 150 days in the year. At this time the government only seen children with special needs as being purely medical, and that it wasn’t necessary for special needs to get an education. Children with special needs lived in hospitals and county homes at this time, however some religious-run special needs schools were set up at the time for example in 1946 the school for deaf girls was opened in Cabra called St. Marys, and in 1857 opened by the Christian brothers St josephs for deaf boys also in Cabra and St josephs for the blind opened in 1884 in drumcondra. Children from all around the country boarded in these schools from a young age. From 1919 to early 1990s all education including special needs education was carried out by religious orders in Ireland, and as a result there was no policies or legislations for special needs provision in Ireland. This remained like this for some time until people started to decline rapidly and eventually the state took over all of these schools that was run by the religious. The religious started to spread awareness among parents, teachers and other professionals of how Ireland had fallen behind in special needs provision comparing to other countries and this resulted in the government policy of the introduction to new and important pieces of legislation in Ireland.(flood.2013) In 1947 St Vincent’s home for special needs was officially recognised and this school at the time their belief was that children with special needs should not be educated alongside children with no special needs and that it was detrimental to the education of ‘normal’ children. Children with additional needs at the time were all assessed in county clinics and after assessments all that was offered to them was institutional care or basic training. In 1959 the first inspector for special needs education was came into place and in the 1960s to the early 1980s a lot of special needs schools opened that catered for children with physical, mental and sensory disabilities, and this represented the era of special needs. Today there are 107 schools opened with some schools catering for more than one special need with a total of 129. In early 1980s there was a worldwide lobby for the integration for children with special needs, and this influenced the Irish education policy and classes for special needs in the mainstream schools and in 1993 two thousand children were getting an education in special classes in mainstream schools. In 1991 there was a review on all special needs in Ireland of provision from preschool to secondary and after this review the Report of Special Education Review Committee was published in 1993 and this report was important as it provided a definition of special needs, that children with special needs be educated in mainstream schools, the report also included that there be a psychological service linked to the schools, integration and many more In 1995 the white paper on education stated that all students regardless of their circumstances had a right to access to and participate in the education system (flood.2013). The medical model is a view of disability as requiring medical intervention and the social model is a view of disability as a problem within society (Beaver.et al.2001). Was set up to ensure inclusion for children with special needs Legislation and policy developments relating to children with special needs Special needs Act2004
Special needs and to educate a child in an environment along with children who don’t have special needs. Education rights are changing all the time and have become more and excepting over time and there is...
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