Poor response from schools to ‘social context’ survey

A third of post-primary schools have failed to return questionnaires designed to help allocate resources for special education needs from next September.

The “social context” survey is part of a plan to create a more equitable system of allocating teaching supports.

While school principals say the plan is well-motivated, they are complaining about the onus it puts on them to report on pupils’ family backgrounds.

The questionnaire asks for details of medical card holders, the number of pupils living in social housing, those with an unemployed head of household, and other indicators of the school’s socio-economic make-up.

Seán Cottrell, director of the Irish Primary Principals Network, told an Oireachtas committee yesterday "we have never encountered the level of comment and anger over having to ask [the] questions, especially in medium and small schools".

While principals had no problem providing educational information, he said it was not the business of schools to know “whether a family has income supplement or is paying a mortgage. It damages the relationship of trust”.

The surveys are to be combined with two other sources of information – standardised test scores and the number of students with very complex special educational needs – to determine what level of teaching supports they will receive in the future.

It seeks to replace the current system, whereby parents must get a diagnosis for their children to access resource hours or learning support.

The data is being collated by the Education Research Centre for the Department of Education, which said that 81 per cent of primary schools and 62 per cent of post-primary schools had returned their surveys to date.

Missed deadline

The deadline for their return was September 26th last, and it is understood a significant number of principals returned the questionnaire with sections left blank.

Clive Byrne, director of National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, representing secondary schools, said it supported the resourcing plan describing it as "pro-student".

But, he said, “people have concerns about aspects of it and why information should come from the schools when it should be available from other agencies or departments.”

Mr Byrne said principals had been asked to make “guesstimates” and were concerned their schools could be penalised if they left sections blank.

There was also “a lack of clarity” about how the different factors would be weighted when it came to allocating resources.

Responding to such concerns, Eamon Stack, chairman of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE), which is charged with overseeing the plan, said it was not claiming it had discovered the perfect model but it was a "better and more equitable way" of delivering resources.

He appeared before the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection along with NCSE ceo Teresa Griffin who said it had been keen to avoid adding any extra burden on principals.

However, she said one thing that came out of consultation was a desire for “the voice of principals to be heard” in the new regime.

Principals also expressed concern as to whether providing information on children’s backgrounds breached data protection laws, but the Department said in a statement: “Schools were not asked to return data in relation to the social circumstances of individual pupils.

“The position was checked with the office of the Data Protection Commissioner and it was clarified that provided the information sought was not personal to any individual the provisions of the Data Protection Act did not apply.”