No change since ‘industrial revolution’ for autistic children | UK News

Northern Ireland’s education system “hasn’t changed since the industrial revolution,” according to the independent autism reviewer.

“Autistic people are telling us with their behaviour that school is not an easy or a safe place for them to be and to learn,” Ema Cubitt said.

Ms Cubitt made her comments to MLAs when questioned about pupils not attending school.

“I do have a concern that there is a generation of schoolchildren who are traumatised by their school experience,” she later said.

Ms Cubitt was giving evidence to a joint meeting of Stormont’s Health and Education committees.

“Every child wants to learn, it’s a natural curiosity, but unless you feel safe in school you can’t go,” Ms Cubitt said.

“There’s been a missed opportunity to review our education system as a whole.

“There’s going to be Special Educational Needs (SEN) children coming increasingly into mainstream and I would certainly be asking the question ‘are schools ready for that?'”

Ms Cubitt was appointed as Northern Ireland’s first independent autism reviewer in 2024.

Her role is independent of government departments and involves assessing the adequacy of services to autistic people.

She said there was “not a consistency” over how Stormont departments considered autistic people.

“If any department touches on the lives of people, you have to be thinking about autism,” she said.

Parents of autistic young people have previously told News NI and Spotlight about the lack of support for them and their children.

Ms Cubitt also said that there was an often an “abyss, there’s nothing there” for autistic young people when they left school.

“To have a whole section of our population not have a place in society – which is effectively what this is – is just fundamentally wrong.”

The gap in provision for young people with SEN leaving school has previously been highlighted by Alma White and other parents.

During the committee hearing, Ms Cubitt answered a number of questions from MLAs about the school system.

“We have to change how we deal with our young people in school,” she said.

Ms Cubitt called a delivery plan for SEN reform published by the Education Minister Paul Givan “quite disappointing.”

“There’s a lot of it that sounds really good on the surface but I just don’t see how it delivers,” she said.

“It all sounds lovely, but are schools ready for it?

“I don’t think that they are.

“To still have autism referenced as a medical condition in a transformation plan is deeply disappointing, and the department know that.

“There has to be a real mind shift, a real cultural shift.”

Ms Cubitt had earlier told MLAs that autism was “not an illness, a medical condition or a flaw,” and should not be seen as a “deficit.”

“Where there are people there are autistic people,” she said.

“We know from data that prevalence of autism in Northern Ireland is rising.”

Some adults are also being diagnosed with autism later in life.

Ms Cubitt later expanded on her comments about the industrial revolution.

“From the industrial revolution where we’re pushing individuals in one end and out the other, it hasn’t changed and that’s a fact,” she said.

“I think we need to question why are we still talking about punishments now in 2025?

“In terms of children who are struggling to attend school, fear of those punishments can be so overwhelming.

“I do have a concern that there is a generation of schoolchildren who are traumatised by their school experience.

“You’ll never teach a child who doesn’t feel safe or happy.”

In response to a later question from the DUP MLA Peter Martin, Ms Cubitt expressed more concern about punishment in schools.

“I will never agree with a school that says ‘your child has been bad and we’re punishing them,'” she said.

“I think that’s so outdated and I’m really uncomfortable with the language.”

The Committee for Education and the Committee for Health held a joint meeting in Middletown, County Armagh on Wednesday 19 February.

However, due to technical problems the committee hearing was not streamed or broadcast live.

Middletown Centre for Autism, which was opened in 2007, receives cross-border funding from the Department of Education (DE) in Northern Ireland and the Department of Education in the Republic of Ireland.