Charade of education for disabled

Remember the Kathy Sinnott case in July 2001? Remember that the Supreme Court found that even though Kathy's son Jamie didn't have the right to a basic education for as long as he needed it, it he and other people with disabilities did have the right to an appropriate education up to 18?

Remember how, in response to widespread public anger and dismay, the Government assured us that it had taken Kathy and Jamie to the Supreme Court merely to clarify the law and that it was absolutely committed to giving disabled children the services they need?

Immediately after the ruling, the then Minister for Education announced: "I have been given practically a blank cheque to better services." (sic) He went on to say: "The Government fully accepts that it must fully and appropriately provide for the education and care of people with disabilities."

Interviewed by Seán Flynn in this paper the following month, he repeated that "the Government has given me a virtually blank cheque to upgrade resources". New legislation would be introduced to give substance to the constitutional rights of children with disabilities. "On a practical basis, it appears the new legislation will give parents the right to get the level of education for their child which is deemed appropriate by experts in the area."

The key phrase here is "deemed appropriate by experts". The Supreme Court had found that sticking a kid like Jamie at the back of a classroom and paying no real attention to his special needs wasn't a fulfilment of his right to a primary educ- ation. It ruled that the State "in failing to provide for free primary education for Mr Sinnott up to the age of 18 and appropriate to his needs, had deprived him of his constitutional rights".

So what was going to happen was clear enough: children with learning difficulties would be assessed independently by educational psychologists, their needs would be determined and the State would set about giving them an appropriate education. Since the Department of Education had "virtually a blank cheque", the general public was entitled to feel that one of the greatest sources of shame to the nation was about to be removed.

What's happened since? Firstly, the promised Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill was watered down in such a way as make it virtually meaningless. The original Bill committed the Minister to "providing such resources as are necessary" but this has since been altered to "providing such resources as are determined by the Minister".

Then, as the current school year began, the Department set up an audit of special needs provision. When I saw this announcement, I thought that with a backlog of 10,000 children waiting for assessment, this was a serious attempt to get to grips with the problem. Mind- bogglingly, it is the precise opposite: the audit, we are told, was "prompted by the belief that up to 30 per cent of special- needs assistants in pri- mary schools may be in excess of requirements".

Already, children with Down's Syndrome attending primary schools have had their special needs assistants withdrawn - and something even more insidious is going on.

The key to any system that gives kids their constitutional rights is an independent assessment of needs by educational psychologists. This is what the public has been told the State is providing. What it hasn't been told is that the Department has issued guidelines to the psychologists telling them what they may and may not find a child actually needs.

It's clear, for a start, that kids do not have a right to an assessment. The guidelines, under the heading "How many assessments may each school commission?" set out a table indicating that each school may commission just one assessment for every 50 pupils. If a school with 100 pupils happens to have two kids with Down's, two with autism and one with hearing problems, that's just tough. Three of them can't get an assessment.

Psychologists, moreover, "will be expected to familiarise themselves with the Department's circular letters relevant to special educational needs". Behind this blandly Orwellian language, there are the circulars themselves. They instruct the experts to assess the child's needs within strict limits. A child with severe hearing impair- ment is to be found to need "a maximum of four hours per week additional teaching support". Kids with serious visual disabilities must be found to need "a maximum of 3.5 hours a week".

This is quite a staggering interference in the professional independence of the psychologists, who are being told, in effect, that if they think a kid needs 10 hours a week of special help, they should report that 3½ or four hours will do.

When you put this together with the Department's setting up an audit that is effectively told to find that much of the current provision is excessive, the grotesque picture becomes clear. There will be a magical finding that, hey presto, the disabled kids need precisely what Charlie McCreevy wants to allocate in his Budget. Who needs a Constitution when our rulers have such wisdom?