§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he is aware of any shortfall in the number of in-service courses provided by his Department, by local education authorities and by other organisations for teachers of children with special educational needs.
§ Dr. BoysonThere is a wide range of in-service training provision available for teachers responsible for the education of children with special educational needs, including long full-time or part-time courses at teacher training institutions, short courses provided by local education authorities and their advisory services, and DES-funded regional courses and Her Majesty's Inspectorate short courses. I have no evidence of any shortfall in the amount of such provision which is made at present. "The Government's Expenditure Plans" (Cmnd. 8494) made allowance for in-service training in general to be maintained at current levels, while the White Paper "Special Needs in Education" (Cmnd. 7996) noted that serving teachers would need support to enable them to build on their experience with children with special needs and that many local education authorities regard this as a priority in their in-service training policies.
§ Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if he will estimate the number of applicants for in-service courses in special educational needs and the number of places available.
§ Dr. BoysonThe majority of in-service courses are arranged locally by local education authorities and the Department has no information about applications for such courses.
The following figures are available and relate to courses in special educational needs approved under regulation 14 of the Schools and Further Education Regulations 1981.
England and Wales: Enrolments and Courses 1981 Full-time (1 year) Part-time Full-time (1 term) Universities Number of Courses 22 6 1 Number of Students 211 143 12 Other Institutions Number of Courses 24 40 5 Number of Students 305 699 44 The part-time figures include courses not leading to a formal qualification. The figures for applications for these courses are not known to the Department.
In addition, this year there were 386 applications for the 300 places available on one-week courses dealing with special educational needs in the Department's programme of short courses for teachers.
733WThis year, also, the regional co-ordinating bodies are providing 320 places on their short courses dealing with special educational needs. The regional co-ordinating bodies do not inform the Department about the number of applications.