Vienna conference on special needs education

Parents from both the State sector, Assocjazzjoni Kunsilli Skolastici (AKS) and the Church school sector, the Association of Parents of Children in Church Schools (APCCS) were represented at the European Parents Association (EPA) general assembly and annual conference held in Vienna from November 21 to 23.

Mrs Mariella Grech, president of the APCCS, represented the association for the first time, following APCCS's admission as an associate member of EPA in September.

The general assembly dealt mainly with the future role of EPA particularly in view of the financial problems being faced by the organisation while the theme of the conference was "Children on the borderline: Encouraging all children to reach their potential". The programme also included the Alcuin Award Ceremony for 2003, which consisted of the presentation of five projects involving collaboration between 'home and school' and the adjudication of the award by a panel chaired by Mrs Maria Barroso Soares, former First Lady of Portugal.

While delivering the keynote speech of the conference, Pamela Muscat, AKS secretary and president of the National Parents' Society for Persons with Disability, stressed that all children are entitled to a quality education. She outlined the parents' responsibility to ensure that all children's needs are catered for and insisted that for 'inclusion' of all children in the school environment to be effective, one had to ensure teamwork between parents, teachers, carers, other professionals and the children themselves. This required the encouragement of proper attitudes towards persons with special needs and the putting into place of proper frameworks both in schools and elsewhere in society.

The issue of 'special needs' was considered, both from the point of view of children with disabilities and also from that of gifted children who should also be considered as having 'special needs', as they may occasionally find it difficult to integrate into the ordinary school environment. A definition of what constituted a 'special need' and what constituted a 'gifted child' was also important.

As regards children with special needs because of disabilities, the conference was informed of developments in European countries where the level and the history of inclusion, and the rights granted to parents varied rather widely.

The ensuing debate mainly centred around how to achieve integration while still maintaining a balanced approach and not having recourse to the attitude of what one delegate termed as 'viewing schools as supermarkets'. The conference also discussed the importance of continuing discussions and research on the situation of gifted children, which amount to about three per cent of school populations and where special attention and training of teachers was also needed.

At the end of the conference the EPA adopted a memorandum on children with special needs in which it demanded the allocation of resources to cover special needs education, proper preparation of teachers for the teaching of such children, school staff that is able to properly communicate with parents of all children in an integrated school environment, a partnership between staff and parents of children with special needs and a place at the political level for parents to be able to raise complaints about inadequate measures for children with special needs.

The memorandum also pointed out the short- sightedness of the tendency towards budget cutting measures in this area given that a child with special needs who is deprived of the necessary facilities during childhood will inevitably end up being more dependent of the State in the long term.

APCCS's participation in this conference was partly made possible through the kind assistance of Air Malta.

The EPA Website is www.epa-parents.org.