The help will come in the form of special-needs officers, who will complement the class teacher's lessons with remedial lessons or skills training in small groups for students with mild to moderate learning difficulties.

For instance, they may work with the subject teacher to repackage a topic, either by simplifying it or by making it more visual, so that it is easily grasped by a child with a learning disability.

At the moment, 103 schools have such officers. By this time next year, another 33 - 25 primary and eight secondary - will have them.

The final tally of 136 schools will comprise 105 primary and 31 secondary schools.

A batch of these special- needs officers will begin training at the National Institute of Education (NIE) in July.

Pioneer Secondary School in Jurong West is due to have a special-needs officer posted to it.

The school, which now has a student with mild autism, expects to enrol more such students when its special-needs officer arrives.

Its principal, Mr N. Satianathan, said the added resource will mean more focused help for a student with autism.

'Sending more special-needs officers to schools is forward-looking. With many changes introduced, this ensures that the holistic development of every child is taken care of, and not just that of the top 10 per cent.'

The school has a full-time counsellor in Ms Chiang Ying Ying, 31, who helps the student with autism deal with social situations, for instance, how to cope with bullying, in addition to counselling other students.

But she is not trained to deal with his academic weaknesses, which is where the special-needs officer will come in.

Special-needs officers must have at least a diploma or a full A-level certificate for entry into NIE's year-long full-time diploma course in special education.

Mainstream teachers are also being given training to deal with special-needs children.

To date, about 1,200 teachers have been trained in special needs and an additional 800 are undergoing training this month.

janeng@sph.com.sg