Questionnaires returned by remedial teachers and principal are being analysed by Gerry Shiel and Mark Morgan at the Educational Research Centre in St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin. It's part of their research on behalf of the Department of Education and Science to assess the remedial service at primary level. Basing their results on a representative sample of 420 schools around the country, they expect to have this study completed by the end of the academic year.

Department guidelines on remedial education issued 10 years ago aimed at providing some direction to schools on how to set up remedial programmes and how to go about assessments and early intervention. The current research should discover the extent to which those guidelines are being followed. Besides, says Shiel, the remedial service has not been studied in any detail by the Department since it was set up in the early Sixties.

"We believe that it's appropriate that schools should have some autonomy in setting forth their own policies on remedial education, including the selection of pupils," Shiel, Morgan and Marian Hartnett wrote in Learn, the remedial teachers' journal, last year. "However, we also feel that schools are at a considerable disadvantage without more specific guidelines on developing their policies."

In the Department's guidelines, they point out, the terms `learning disabled children', `children with learning difficulties', `children with specific learning difficulties' and `children who need special help' are all used to describe pupils in need of remedial services, but these terms are not defined or related to one another in a systematic manner.

"The lack of a shared understanding of such terms as specific learning disability (including specific reading disability and dyslexia), specific learning difficulty, learning difficulty and underachievement seems likely to contribute to problems in identifying pupils in need of remedial education and in developing appropriate programmes once identification has been achieved."

Shiel explains that "we are looking at the provision of remedial teaching in schools, contrasting the provision in schools of different sizes. There are some difficulties with remedial teaching in small schools which have shared teachers. The study will look at whether, if you were a pupil, you would get the same level of service - it's an important issue. Also, if you were in a large school, would you have the same opportunities."