Posted online: May 10th, 2007

A Newtowncunningham father has accused the Department of Education of failing to provide his daughter with an adequate education. The man, who wishes to remain anonymous, says his seven year old daughter suffers from learning difficulties and some physical disabilities due to a rare syndrome caused through two traumatic illnesses.
The girl was sent her to her local primary school, where she currently receives three hours of learning support, usually given to children who are falling behind in a certain area of their school work.
The school applied to the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) for ‘resource hours’ of a maximum of five hours a week due to the girl’s need for extra one to one teaching.
However, the SENO recently refused this application on the grounds that she did not meet the criteria as laid down by the Department of Education. This is despite the submission of letters from several medical experts and school staff.
The girl’s father believes it’s harrowing for parents who have gone through years of anguish due to their child’s disabilities to finally get them into school only to be refused proper support from the State.
He said:”All any parent wants for their child is for them to realise their full potential and to have the best chances in life as possible. It is up to the Government to take a fresh look at the 1998 Education Act and come up with the funding to implement it fully and fairly.
“My daughter loves attending her local national school and enjoys interacting with her little friends. She also loves her teachers and Special Needs Assistant, who along with the other staff in the school, do their very best for her. The Government have talked about the integration of children with special needs into mainstream schools but they have failed to set in place a system to allow this to happen successfully.
” My daughter is not discriminated against by her classmates or her teachers but by the State and I intend to highlight this issue with local candidates in the forthcoming election.”