The government appears to have made a u-turn on the issue of the availability of resource teachers to children with special needs in schools.

Recently, the Department of Education announced that the amount of resource teaching hours available to school pupils with special needs was to be cut by 10%.

This was despite the fact that there has been a 10% increase in the number of children who require this type of assistance, rising from 20,000 to 22,000.

However, following severe criticism from parents, schools and the opposition, the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn, has announced measures ‘to retain the level of resource teachers available to students with special educational needs at the 2012/2013 levels'.

He also said he had secured Cabinet agreement ‘to release 500 additional teaching posts to schools in September to cope with the alarming rise in the demand for these resources'.

"These posts were set aside to meet the late demand expected to arise over the remainder of the next school year. This is a once-off measure that will have budgetary implications which I have alerted my colleagues to," Minister Quinn said.

Meanwhile, he also announced the appointment of Eamon Stack to chair a working group which has been established to develop a new model for allocating resource teachers in schools. Mr Stack is chairperson of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE).

"The group, which will include parents and advocacy groups will begin its work immediately. It will provide an preliminary advice to Minister Quinn in September with advice on how to reform the way the substantial additional educational resources for pupils with special educational needs are allocated in the school system," the Department of Education said.

Meanwhile, the NCSE is set to publish revised details of resource teaching allocations for schools this week. These are based on existing allocation levels and schools will be advised on their specific allocations ‘in the coming days'.