The Home Tuition Grant


The Home Tuition Grant is available to children with autism aged between 2 ½ years and 5 years of age who cannot find an appropriate early intervention placement within the State Education system. The Department of Education will sanction Home Tuition for children who are unable to source a suitable place so that the child can get early intervention from a sanctioned organisation such as Shine Centre who have a direct payment agreement with the Department of Education or from suitably qualified Teacher/Tutor who can deliver tuition in the child’s own home. The Home Tuition Grant is an educational grant and cannot be used to access therapies such as Speech and Language Therapy and Occupational Therapy.

Children between the age of 2 ½ and 3 can access 10 hours home tuition per week. Children over 3 years of age can access 20 hours of home tuition per week.

The proposed Tutor/Teacher must meet very strict criteria to qualify to deliver tuition under the Home Tuition Scheme. At the Shine Centre all of our Teachers/Tutors are registered with the Teaching Council and are fully Garda vetted. These are two of the key qualifying criteria for any Tutor to operate under the Home Tuition Scheme. The Tutor must submit documentary evidence to the Department of Education to show that they are appropriately qualified/registered in both of these areas before they can be approved for the scheme.

A copy of the child’s diagnostic report must also be submitted along with an up to date tax clearance cert from the parents. The completed application form along with all the relevant documentation can then be sent to the Home Tuition Unit of The Department of Education and Skills for approval.
A Tax Clearance Certificate is easily available from the Revenue Commissioners. The Tax Clearance Cert can be accessed on www.revenue.ie

 

Payment:

An organisation such as Shine has a direct payment agreement with the Department of Education so the parents/guardian does not need to get involved in the payment process at all. The parent of each child attending Shine is required to sign an attendance record at the end of each month that Shine will return to the Department of Education. If you engage an individual Tutor to deliver Home Tuition in your own home the Department of Education will pay the grant directly to the parent in the form of an advance payment on a month in arrears basis. The parent of the child receiving tuition must return a form to the Department accounting for the payments made to the Tutor and/or return any unused funds to the Department at the end of the advance payment period. The Tutor will be self employed for tax purposes so they are responsible for their own tax liabilities and the parent/guardian of the child has no responsibilities in that area and does not have to pay any additional taxes for the Tutor.

Qualification of Tutors:

If you decide to engage a Tutor to deliver Home Tuition in the child’s home the Tutors must be a member of the Teaching Council of Ireland and have up to date Garda Vetting. Where possible parents must try and source a fully qualified Teacher. If the parents cannot source a fully qualified teacher then the Department of Education will consider a tutor with a relevant degree e.g. psychology who is a member of the teaching council. Tuition cannot start until the grant has been approved by the department and the parents receive an approval letter stating the date of approval, it is important to note that the grant will not be back dated.

A copy of the home tuition application form can be found in the following link: Home Tuition Application form 2021/22

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