Royal Blind says schools and pupils need more support to deal with visual impairments

The number of school children with with a visual impairment has more than doubled in less than 10 years, according to government research.

Royal Blind has called for local authorities and the Scottish Government to take urgent action to improve support for blind and partially sighted pupils.

The charity has made the call in light of newly published figures from the Scottish Government which show that the numbers of pupils in Scotland who are vision impaired is now at its highest level.

The Scottish Government's Pupil Census for 2017 shows there were 4,331 pupils with vision impairment. This is more than double the 2,005 recorded in the census in 2010.

The charity says there has been a reduction in the number of specialist teachers for children and young people with vision impairment over the period, and is concerned about teachers being overworked and lack of pupil support.

Royal Blind is calling on local authorities and the Scottish Government to ensure the right support is in place for vision impaired pupils in the future.

Chief executive Mark O'Donnell said: "More research is required into why there has been this increase in the number of children and young people with vision impairment, but the trend is clear meaning there are more pupils who need extra support.

“Our highly specialist teachers in vision impairment do a great job, with no additional incentives provided for them to undertake their training. But our understanding is that there are fewer of them, being asked to do more and more.”