The Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald has said she would like children with special needs to be provided with an extra year of free pre-schooling.

Currently, all families are entitled to one free year of pre-school paid for by the state, but the minister believes special needs pupils would benefit from this being doubled.

She told the Irish Times such a plan would boost their development and allow them to be better served by educators.

"The kind of needs they have would become clearer in the course of the second year and they would be better prepared for primary school," Ms Fitzgerald said.

Her department estimates than extending the scheme to special needs children for a second year would require an estimated 15 million euros extra per year, on top of the 166 million euros the existing pre-school funding is expected to cost in 2011.

Last month, it was reported that budgets for special needs assistants in schools will be cut from the start of the next school year, with educational establishments only receiving 90 per cent of the resource teaching hours they had in the 2010-11 period.

Written by Donal Walsh
 

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