Special education cycles

I couldn’t agree more with the comments made by Nedra Johnson (Feb 12) concerning special education. Successive governments have not seemed to grasp that money spent on special needs now means a great saving of money later on.

As the teacher in charge of special needs in a primary school more than 10 years ago I saw what a difference teacher aides could make, not only to individual children but to the teacher’s stress levels as well. Year after year people came from the ministry to ask us questions and seek our opinions. How excited they seemed to hear this ‘‘new’’ information, which they would take back to the powers that be, where unfortunately it sank without trace and in a year or two another lot of investigators would come and repeat the exercise. It seems nothing has changed.

Robin Mackay Rangiora