Capacity Building for Inclusion: The Role and Contribution of Special Needs Assistants and Classroom Assistants in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Historically, the basic right to education has been an automatic assumption for children in Ireland and Northern Ireland. For pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN), this has been a more ambiguous process, where the language, policy and legislation of education provision has alternately strengthened and diminished their educational options. This, our second thematic report, focuses on capacity building to support the inclusion of children with SEN within the mainstream school sector. The issue is explored specifically in relation to the role of the Special Needs Assistant (SNA) in Ireland and the Classroom Assistant (CA) in Northern Ireland.