Incalculable harm to special needs education | Letters
An increasingly effective framework of support for some of the nation's most vulnerable children and their families, young people with special educational needs and disabilities, that has shown steady progress since the groundbreaking 1978 Warnock report, has been destroyed by the policies of Michael Gove and George Osborne (Crisis looms for special needs education, 23 October).
As a former local education authority (LEA) senior adviser and higher education lecturer for special educational needs (SEN), I can't express how angry I feel over the destruction of these services. It is not "looming"; it is a crisis. Fifteen out of every 100 children have these needs, which include a variety of disabilities from the partially sighted and hearing impaired to children with mild and complex learning difficulties. Educational psychology services, speech therapy, home tuition for sick children, teams of highly qualified specialist support teachers and advisers have been reduced to a rump. Specialist integrated units in mainstream schools are closing. Vandalism is too kind a term. For Nadhim Zahawi to parrot cash spending figures in defence adds insult to injury when the evidence of wrecked services is all around. The worry and stress caused to the families of these deserving children denied their right to life-enhancing education is incalculable.
Dr Robin C Richmond
Bromyard, Herefordshire