Political correctness is masking a crisis in education for special needs, Susie Hall told delegates at the ASTI conference in Ennis yesterday.
"For fear of appearing less than welcoming of students with special educational needs and foreign nationals, we are not speaking out about the problems in our schools," said Ms Hall.
"We have afforded the Department of Education the opportunity to perpetrate the greatest confidence trick on parents - that their children with special needs are being served in mainstream schools."
Ms Hall said that the notion of integration of children with special needs was a "myth", as these children were not getting a fraction of what they needed. Any students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Aspergers or dyslexia who were making it through the system were doing so without any help from the department, she claimed.
In a survey published by the ASTI last week, it was revealed that the number of students presenting with special educational needs in post primary schools has risen significantly in the last three years. The number of students with emotional and behavioural problems has also risen. Only 36 per cent of schools in the survey had a permanent resource teacher on staff. The author of the survey report, Moira Leydon, ASTI education and research officer, challenged Tuesday's claim by Minister for Education and Science Mary Hanafin that schools taking special needs pupils would get the resources they needed.
"Minister, that's simply not true," she told delegates in Ennis yesterday.
Ms Hall was especially critical of the current lack of continuity between care in the primary and secondary-level schooling. At the moment, the act of graduating from primary school meant that, in the eyes of the department, special educational needs students were "cured". "At this point the whole charade starts all over again," she said. Students with special needs were in out of the rain, but not integrated, she said.
Patricia Wroe, of the Dublin south central branch, joined other delegates in condemning the department's record on providing adequate support for foreign national students with language needs.
She pointed to the need to provide language support outside the schools for children and their parents. "I have witnessed many pupils acting as interpreters between their parents and the principal," said Ms Wroe.
"This is not mentally wholesome for a child."
Catherine Fitzpatrick told delegates that without adequate language supports non-English speaking students "might as well not be there at all".
