Special education policy often creates false expectations for parents and ignores the needs of pupils, according to a new report.
The report, from the Irish Association of Teachers in Special Education (IATSE), says that there is a policy vacuum in the Department of Education and Science over special schools.
This, it says, is leading to a strong sense of unease among teachers about the future of such schools.
Special-needs teachers say that all options, including the mainstreaming of special-needs children, should be put before parents "without prejudice".
It is critical of what it calls the "ideological promotion" of mainstreaming by government.
One teacher quoted in the report argues that some of the counselling, both formal and informal, which parents later require is the result of discovering by bitter experience that their expectations for their child's educational development were misguided.
Yesterday, the general secretary of INTO, John Carr, supported the call in the report for policy on special schools to be clearly outlined and for a strategic plan to be put in place.
