The Commons: Northern Ireland’s Educational Blunder

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Around the world, education is a fundamental and inalienable human right crucial to the development of individuals and society across the globe. However, in Northern Ireland, there has been considerable criticism over the Department of Education’s handling of the education of special needs children.

A recent report by the Department of Education into the problems of special needs in education provisions within the educational system has found that “more than 1,000” children with ‘Special Educational Needs’ (SEN) need a school placement for the 2024-2025 school year starting in September.

In Northern Ireland, the Department of Education alongside the Education Authority have the job of focusing on all of the issues and problems that exist within the education sector and system within the country and addressing these issues, such as the problem of having not enough spaces for children with special educational needs.

With the next school year nearly six months away, the amount of places that still need to be distributed for SEN children is a worrying sign for the Department of Education and Education Authority in Northern Ireland. The short time span allowed means there is potential for pupils to miss out on a full school year.

In Northern Ireland, the majority of children without ‘Special Educational Needs’ find out the school they would be attending in the spring months. However, Education Minister Paul Givan recently admitted that SEN children will most likely have to wait longer to know where they will be attending.

In the UK, the school year generally starts in early September and normally finishes in middle-to-late July. Despite there only being a handful of months until the new school year starts, many parents and carers of children with special educational needs have increasingly become anxious and angry at the Department of Education and Education Authority for not addressing these problems earlier.

Despite the importance of children with SEN having a place in the education system, this is not the first time that this type of issue has occurred in Northern Ireland.

Only one year earlier in 2023, there were around “390 children with special educational needs” waiting for an adequate school place for the start of the educational year.

Back-to-back years where the places of children with special educational needs have been a cause for concern have led to questions over the suitability of the
Department of Education in addressing these problems.

There has been criticism of the handling of the special school places by teaching unions, such as the National Association of Head Teachers, who have criticized the increased workload that has been put on administrators as a result of the rush for places for children with special educational needs.

There have been previous plans by the Education Authority in Northern Ireland to increase the amount of special school places that are available, but a mix of
factors such as the cost of the project alongside how soon it would help these schools has led to it being put on the backburner.

Nevertheless, the lack of urgency being shown by the Department of Education and the Education Authority in Northern Ireland to address the root cause of this issue is certainly causing problems with parents who have SEN children all across Northern Ireland. There have been multiple groups across the country pushing those in power to make wholesale changes to the education system in order to fix these problems.

For example, the DoE commissioned a report into how SEN resources function and a major recommendation in the report argued that “systemic reform is critical” to provide the quality of services needed for children with special educational needs across Northern Ireland.

The report also states how the “transformation of SEN services is a key priority for the Department, the Education Authority, and the whole education sector”. Despite the criticism within the education arena in Northern Ireland, it does seem to appear that there is appetite and drive by senior and important figures to fix the problems that are consistently occurring with special educational needs places for school children.

In 2023, there were nearly 400 SEN school children without viable places but in 2024, this has nearly tripled to over 1,000. Parents of school children with special educational needs would argue that the problem could be solved relatively quickly if it was seen as a priority by the Department of Education and the Education Authority but so far, this has not seemed the case.

However, those within the Department of Education and the Education Authority would argue that it is a high priority and the report that they commissioned over their current approach to SEN would be key evidence of this.

As well, Northern Ireland had a major shift in their political ideology with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein winning their first election in Northern Ireland ahead of the Democratic Unionist Party, who had been in power from 2007-2022.

The ideologies between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein are vastly different and are dissimilar to other democratic countries. The two parties represent two sides of a religious, cultural, and political conflict and
the shift between the two could have had major bearings on the current educational situation.

Paul Givan, the current education minister, is seen as a conservative member of the DUP, but the contrasting differences between the two major parties have led to a core struggle over how to attack the current SEN issues.

Nonetheless, it is clear to see that solving the places available for children with SEN should be a clear priority for those involved in the education sector in Northern Ireland.