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Teaching-Disabled Students
In England, 21% of all students are labelled “special education needs” (SEN), for a total of 1.7 million children, with the attendant army of specialist teachers. Now the government has announced that students must have been formally diagnosed with specific diagnoses such as autism or dyslexia in order to receive SEN support. Saying that many of the identified students have been so labelled in order to cover up poor teaching, the Education Secretary expects the new measure to reduce the percentage of SEN students by at least 10%. The teachers’ union, predictably, is crying bloody murder, since the new measure will result in fewer specialist teachers.
We will monitor this new policy with great interest, especially with regard to what percentage of students lose their SEN designation. In Ontario, approximately 13% of students are provided with special services, with about two-thirds of them having a formal designation.