Schools: Visual Impairment

(asked on 19th January 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what plans his Department has to increase the number of specialist professionals supporting children and young people with a vision impairment, including specifically habilitation professionals and qualified teachers of the visually impaired.


Answered by
Will Quince Portrait
Will Quince
This question was answered on 25th January 2022

The department is firmly committed to ensuring that children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND), including visual impairments, receive the support they need to achieve in their early years, school and college.

Information on the number of qualified teachers of the visually impaired, and specialist habilitation workers, is not collected by the department.

It is a legal requirement for qualified teachers of classes of pupils who have sensory impairments to hold the relevant mandatory qualification in sensory impairment (MQSI). To offer MQSIs, providers must be approved by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education.

We intend to develop a new approval process to determine providers of MQSIs from the start of the academic year 2023/2024. Our aim is to ensure a steady supply of teachers of children with visual, hearing, and multi-sensory impairment, in both specialist and mainstream settings.

High needs funding, which is specifically for supporting children with more complex SEND, will be increasing by £1 billion in the financial year 2022-23 and will bring the overall total of funding for high needs to £9.1 billion. This unprecedented increase of 13% comes on top of the £1.5 billion increase over the last two years.

Decisions about how funding is used, including for the employment of specialist teachers for visually impaired children and specialist habilitation professionals, are made by local authorities and schools.

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