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Disability awareness > Module 2 > Page 11

 

Legislation and disability

The Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill 2003

In July 2003, the Minister for Education and Science, Noel Dempsey, published the Education for Persons with Disabilities Bill. Minister Dempsey stated that the purpose of the Bill ‘is to make detailed provision through which the education of children with educational disabilities can be guaranteed as a right enforceable in law'.

The central aims of the Bill are to 'provide the structures to ensure that the education system meets the needs of children with disabilities, and in doing so allows them to leave school with the skills necessary to live independent and fulfilled lives'.

Some of the main provisions of the Bill include the following:

• integrated, inclusive education to be the general approach to the education of children with special needs
• assessment of a child to be provided up to the age of 18
• a child with an assessed educational disability is to have a detailed and goals driven individual education plan
• a statutory duty is imposed on the relevant ministers to make resources available to schools for the provision of adequate and appropriate education to children with special educational needs

‘This legislation offers us the opportunity, finally, to give practical effect to rights laid down almost 70 years ago in the Constitution'.

The various pieces of legislation are linked and should be read in conjunction with each other. The Acts provide an accumulation of impact on disability in education.

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