DISABLED pupils and their families could be disadvantaged by a new law governing the number of hours they must attend school, according to a leading charity.
Councils have a potential “get-out” clause in situations where a child is informally excluded from classes under the new education act, according to Enable Scotland.
The learning disability group has published a report on inclusion policies in schools that draws attention to the provision, which is not yet on the statute book.
READ MORE: Public bodies should lead Scotland's green journey, says Scottish Renewables director
It allows local authorities to provide fewer hours than the legal minimum for pupils, if they are “satisfied that the pupil’s wellbeing would be adversely affected if the prescribed hours were to be made available”.
Enable Scotland says it is concerned the Education (Scotland) Act 2016 effectively offers local authorities a legal loophole, allowing schools to reduce school attendance for a child who is struggling, rather than providing additional support.
Its Included in the Main report, which highlighted claims from parents that pupils with learning disabilities are regularly excluded from school on an informal basis, on the grounds they are not coping or need some time out.
Enable Scotland argues the problem is often a shortage of expertise in the school workforce or a lack of resources.
That view is backed by education law expert Iain Nisbet, a consultant solicitor with Cairn Legal.
He said: “This law gives all the power and discretion to the education authority. They could say ‘yes, we think your child should be at this school, but only for an hour or two per day or per week. Parents have heard all of these excuses before. This will make it much more difficult to act effectively for parents.”
Jan Savage, Enable Scotland’s director of external affairs, said. “Councils must not interpret the law as a get out clause about hours. There is a need for strong guidance for all local authorities on how to deliver inclusive education.”
Education Secretary John Swinney pledged to bring forward renewed guidance on exclusions this week and told the Scottish Parliament that the issues raised by the Enable Scotland report were important.
However, Conservative shadow education secretary Liz Smith said parents should decide whether their child should be in a mainstream class or a special school.
“While helping pupils with learning disabilities into mainstream education is a laudable aim, these statistics show that not enough is being done to help support them,” she said.
READ MORE: Public bodies should lead Scotland's green journey, says Scottish Renewables director
“Many schools do not have the resources to accommodate them, and as a result these children are being left behind. It must be up to the parents to decide whether they want their child to enter mainstream education, or whether a specialist school would be better equipped to help them.”
Labour Inequalities spokeswoman Monica Lennon said: “This damning research should serve as a wake-up call to SNP Ministers that they will be failing children in Scotland if they carry on making cuts to local authorities.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here