Inclusive education in Belarus is prevented by ...parents’ guidelines?

In Belarus, the majority of parents of healthy children supports the idea of the need to develop the integrated education system, but in reality they are not ready to allow their children study in integrated classes.

In Belarus, the majority of parents of healthy children supports the idea of the need to develop the integrated education system, but in reality they are not ready to allow their children study in integrated classes.

This paradoxical hypothesis was confirmed in a study conducted by the Office on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities together with the Centre for European Transformation. A qualitative research study on focus groups focused on parents’ attitudes as a factor for the effective implementation of the inclusive education system in Belarus. The focus group included parents of healthy children and parents of children with disabilities.

- The existing to date system of teaching children with disabilities does not meet the needs and expectations of disabled children and their parents, - says the coordinator of the Office on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Sergey Drozdovsky. - In spite of the diversity of the forms of learning of disabled children in our country, the access to education is still difficult to them and the educational services’ quality remains at a relatively low level.

In Belarus, there is a contradiction between the declaration of the provision of equal rights and opportunities for training and education of children with disabilities and their practical implementation.

- Today there is no feedback from parents of children with disabilities during decision-making processes, legislation acts’ elaboration in the field of education for children with disabilities leads to inefficient measures, - notes Sergey Drozdovsky. - During the focus groups’ work, parents of healthy children agreed with the fact that there is a need to develop the inclusive education system in Belarus, to increase the number of integrated classes, to improve the skills of teachers, to inform parents of healthy children of the existence of such education form, etc. But being due to choose, these people turned out not to be ready to give their child to study in an integrated class, or they claimed that they were ready for it under certain conditions (good qualification of the teacher, the number of students in the class, the severity of impairments of a child with a disability, etc.).

Inclusive education: the obstacle race

According to Sergey Drozdovsky, one of the major obstacles to the development of inclusive education in our country is the absence in most domestic schools the environment for learning of disabled children, in particular, of barrier-free environment; not only in schools, but also outside schools, in public transport. The parents noted a lack of specialists in schools to work with children with special needs, ie support staff, assistants who would work individually with each disabled child.

A major obstacle to the development of joint education of normal children and children with disabilities is insufficient training (also psychological) of teachers as to work with disabled children.

There is a lack of willingness of all participants of educational process to implement forms of inclusive education in the school system. Parents of disabled people are often not willing to send their children to learn in normal schools because of fears that their child will be ill-treated by other children and teachers. Some of them prefer to educate their children at home because of fear for their reputation as in our society it is widely believed that the majority of children with disabilities are children of parents who drink much alcohol, children from disadvantaged backgrounds, etc.

The development of inclusive education in our country is also hindered by the lack of information on persons with disabilities in our society, which in its turn leads to their social isolation and perception of them as being unequal to the rest of the citizens.

Positive developments

Although there are many problems regarding the development of the inclusive education system in our country, in recent years there has been a positive shift in addressing the issue of inclusion of children with disabilities in the educational process.

According to the opinions of the focus groups’ participants, a major factor in improving the situation of access to education for children with special needs is the active work of the parents of these children who have a vested interest in improving the quality of the education system and the access to education.

According to official data, in Belarus about 7% of children have special needs. According to official figures, there are more than 25 thousand children with disabilities and more than 120 thousand children with special needs that require special conditions for learning.

To date in the country there are 222 special classes on the basis of ordinary schools, 5787 classes of integrated education, as well as 1368 offices of correctional and educational assistance. Barrier-free environment has been created in more than 10 schools (in Minsk, Hrodna, Brest).

However, more than half of children with disabilities are still enrolled in special educational establishments of residential type. For comparison, in European countries 3-4% of children educate not in the inclusive schools, most of whom have severe health problems and problems of development. Other categories of children with disabilities are enrolled in regular schools, live in families with their parents.

What should be done?

The study highlighted a number of measures aimed at improving access of disabled children to education, improving the quality of educational services for disabled people and the development of inclusive education in our country.

First of all, the opinions of parents of disabled children should be considered in decision-making processes, development of legislation in the field of education of disabled children.

There is need to pay more attention to training teachers for working with children with disabilities both at the higher pedagogical education level and as part of postgraduate education.

There should be assured support staff in all schools with integrated classes, as for assistants provided to disabled children individual assistance, not related to the educational curriculum subjects (moving from class to class, etc.).

A good service will serve a preliminary psychological preparation of children, parents and teachers in schools where there is planned to create integrated classes.

The earliest possible inclusion of children with disabilities in an inclusive environment will significantly increase the chances of the child for successful integration, not only in the learning process, but also in other spheres of social life.