By Koulla Yiasouma, Honorary Professor of Practice, Centre for Children’s Rights, Queen’s University Belfast
Most of my career has been spent working with teenagers either with care experience or involved with the criminal justice system within a human rights framework. I flatter myself as being a bit of an expert in rights-based youth justice. Over the course of two decades, I learned that poverty and childhood trauma often resulted with children not succeeding in school and occasionally coming in contact with the criminal justice system with the ensuing poor outcomes.
Therefore, when I was appointed Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People in 2015, I stated that educational disadvantage would be one of my priorities, fully expecting that work to concentrate on the enormous educational divide that mirrors economic disadvantage – after all the statistics speak for themselves; in 2023/24 the attainment gap between those entitled to Free Schol Meals (FSME) and those not was 25/.3%. Additionally, only 11% of grammar school pupils are entitled to Free School Meals. However, what I discovered is that educational disadvantage is multi-faceted and although poverty was (and remains) a significant determinate of poor outcomes, what the statistics did not, and continue not to identify, are educational outcomes for children with additional or special educational needs (SEN).
Early on in my tenure, I met parents of children with SEN, who were exhausted, frustrated, angry and yes often quite rude to me. Me – the person who was tasked to protect their children’s rights – what had I done to deserve such dismissal? I quickly discovered that I was not the first well-meaning professional that they had met who had made empty promises. Of course, I never intended these promises to be empty, but my intentions were not the focus of these parents; my actions from their children were. From the day and hour that they recognised their child’s additional needs, they had gone from parent to advocate to campaigner to fighter often during the same day. The older their child became the fiercer the battle became. I’m not sure, in their shoes that I would have been as polite as most were.
I have had the privilege of visiting many schools across Northern Ireland, and in those early years, as Commissioner, the vast majority of Primary School Principals and senior school leaders wanted to share their frustration and anger at not receiving the support to meet the needs of children with special educational needs, particularly those who were waiting for a formal educational assessment. These Principals described measures that they were taking to ensure some form of education for all children even though they knew it violated the rights of many children to effective education. They were at a loss as to what to do. I could only sympathise with them but had few solutions. Sometimes they appreciated that sympathy as they did not feel they were getting any from official channels. It is well documented that when it comes to children with SEN, the system has and continues to fall well short. This has often been described as a resource issue which largely it is, but it is also an issue of compassion, empathy and transparency. I found that most people working in the education system care about what they do, but because they have to say “no” so often, they have, by necessity, built a wall around themselves for their own protection which helps no-one – not themselves or schools and certainly not children and their families. That wall also stopped them seeing the impact on children of operating a flawed education system.
Additionally, parents of children with complex needs were also experiencing challenges in getting social care support for their children, particularly respite care which has become increasingly scarce.
These were issues that were known across education and the health and social care system before March 2020 but have significantly deteriorated since then. When I think about what happened during the pandemic, I am filled with anger and distress in equal measure.
In October 2025 the Covid Inquiry turns its attention to children and there can be no doubt that what happened to children with a disability, particularly those with complex needs, will be a focus.
Not long after lockdown was announced, a journalist contacted me to outline concern shared with her by parents about services for their children. I responded by saying it was early days and to give “the system” time to work out what they were doing. By June 2020 I admitted to her that I was wrong. Schools closed as did most services including respite, with little to replace them for children. Families were, in the main, left to their own devices. Education and social care agencies developed plans and talked to each other, but I remain unconvinced that they talked to parents and children and they certainly did not give special schools the confidence to fully re-open or provide the right support to many families. The lack of understanding of what parents and children were experiencing during the pandemic meant that genuine effort fell well short and some families were falling apart.
I am confident that the Chair of the Inquiry, Baroness Hallett, will make some excellent recommendations about future pandemics as well as supporting this generation of children and young people as they continue to recover from the impact of the lockdown. However, we do not need to wait for her recommendations – we know what we need to do. There have been hundreds of recommendations on a range of issues concerning children with disabilities and SEN addressing their health and social care, quality of education provision and unacceptable use of restrictive practices in schools such as restraint and seclusion. Yet the inertia is an extraordinary sight to behold. No more wringing of hands, time is long past to get on with it and work with experts, parents and children to provide them with education and care that they have an inalienable right to.
The Education System in Northern Ireland does not work for children with SEN. Instead of working with parents, children, advocates and educators to reform it, we simply tinker at the edges. Time to stop and start again – it can be done.
It will of course, cost money, quite a bit in the first instance but we can’t afford to continue to fund a failing system. I am not an economist so, forgive me, but if we need to borrow some more to invest in our children than so be it.
I wanted to finish with an inspirational quote, but they all seem trite so I will finish with my go to – Article 29 (1(a)) of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which states that education should be directed to:
“The development of the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential”.
It’s not too much to ask …… is it?
About the Author
Koulla Yiasouma is Honorary Professor of Practice in the Centre for Children’s Rights at Queen’s University Belfast. She is an established leader in the area of children’s rights and youth justice. She served as the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People from 2015 to 2023, working to safeguard the rights and best interests of children.
The featured image appears courtesy of a Creative Commons License.