Overview: Special Education Teaching Allocations 2025/26
12 February 2025
- For 2025/26 school year there will be almost 15,000 Special Education teachers allocated to support children and young people with special education needs in mainstream classes.
- For the 2025/26 school year nationwide, almost 86 % of schools have either increased their allocation of hours or retained their previous allocation of hours.
- At the same time 20.7% of schools will see an increase in their allocation These schools are developing schools due to demographic changes and enrolment increases.
- The 14.3%% of schools who will see a reduced allocation this is driven by demographic change and reducing enrolments. 95% of these schools will see reductions of under 5 hours with the remaining 5% will see greater reduction due to significant reductions in enrolment.
- Every school is different, and individual schools can experience unique circumstances that may be difficult to reflect in a standardised method. Any school who has any concerns can engage with the NCSE on their allocation.
- The Department would like to advise that work has commenced on the examination of additional potential data sets that may already be available in schools that could support greater sensitivity in the model. School visits are being scheduled for this purpose.~
Special Education, Department of Education - February 2025