Government must end cruel discrimination against children with Down Syndrome \u2013 Crowe<\/p>\n
Speaking after attending a briefing by Down Syndrome Ireland, Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe called on Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn to add Down Syndrome to the list of \u2018Low Incidence Disabilities\u2019 in order to enable children affected qualify for access to Resource Teaching Hours.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cResearch shows that children with Down Syndrome will have better educational outcomes if they attend mainstream rather than special schools, yet access to vital resource teaching hours within the public school system is being withheld from these children despite their obvious need.<\/p>\n
\u201cDown Syndrome is by its nature complex and affects intellectual ability, speech, language, hearing, memory, vision, motor skills and general health.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a condition which seriously disadvantages children and affects a pupil\u2019s ability to cope with the school curriculum. Down Syndrome affects 1 in every 546 births in Ireland each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year about 120 children are born with Down syndrome and approximately 80 of these will begin mainstream primary education each year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is clearly by definition a complex low incidence disorder yet remarkably it is not one of the 11 \u2018Low Incidence Disabilities\u2019 that qualify for extra Resource Teaching Hours.<\/p>\n
“Prior to 2005 all children with Down syndrome received Resource Teaching Hours, but some genius in the Department of Education and with a compliant Fianna F\u00e1il Minister came up with this new policy in order to supposedly save money.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe cut literally means that about 30 children with Down Syndrome who have IQ scores in the mild range of learning disability do not now qualify for specifically allocated resource hours despite the very small numbers needing these supports each year. <\/p>\n
“This cruel cut needs to be reversed as it is impacting negatively on these children with special needs. <\/p>\n
“Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn is aware of this negative policy and currently has a report on his desk outlining the problems that are effecting the educational outcomes of these children.<\/p>\n
“We are talking about a huge expense here but it will have a huge positive impact on Down Syndrome Children currently in or entering the educational system.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could easily be resolved by simply adding Down syndrome to the list. It\u2019s a small number and is the kind of support that will have a huge impact on these children\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Quinn and his Government cannot continue to discriminate against children with Down syndrome. These children have the right to the same education as every other child in the country and the state or the Department of Education should be supporting these children and not putting more barriers in their way.\u201d CR\u00cdOCH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Government must end cruel discrimination against children with Down Syndrome \u2013 Crowe Speaking after attending a briefing by Down Syndrome Ireland, Dublin South West TD Se\u00e1n Crowe called on Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn to add Down Syndrome to the list of \u2018Low Incidence Disabilities\u2019 in order to enable children affected qualify for access to Resource […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":674,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672\/revisions\/674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}