New aid for pupils with disability

A project aimed at having individual educational plans for each student with a disability has been launched in government primary schools.

The first phase of the Inclusive Schools Project is specifically aimed at enabling all these schools to develop and implement individual educational planning for each student with a Statement of Special Needs in Year I by the end of this scholastic year.

The project is supported by the National Curriculum Council and is a continuation of the work of the Focus Group for Inclusive Education, which has already worked with several volunteering schools. The initiative is now being extended to all primary schools.

Children with individual educational needs make up 20 per cent of the school population and the project will eventually benefit the schools' ability to respond to the diversity of all students. In 2000, the Ministerial Committee for Inclusive Education had issued the policy document, called Inclusive Education: Policy regarding Students with Disability, which had established that in order to ensure that students with disability are offered an equal opportunity to learn and make progress in school, there should be an individual educational plan (IEP) for each student with a disability.

Such a plan would ensure that the students' level of progress in all areas of development are assessed; that the next steps in learning are set out as targets to be addressed during the scholastic year; and that the student is given the personal and material support needed for him to participate in the learning activities at school. Moreover, the IEP would indicate who will be responsible to support the student's learning, and how and when the student's progress would be reviewed.

However, this policy was not mandatory because some schools did not have the facilities and trained personnel for this to be achieved. But over the past four years, there has been an increase in the provision of resources and support personnel for these children.

The Education Division is now insisting that schools take up this policy seriously and schools will be supported to take the first steps.

The Inclusive Schools Project Coordinator is Paul A. Bartolo, Educational Psychologist and Senior Lecturer with the Faculty of Education.