School pilot programme opens door to disabled
May 7, 2009 - "The National" - U.A.E Front page newspaper
ABU DHABI // The Ministry of Education has embarked on an ambitious plan to integrate children with special needs and behavioural problems into state schools in the upcoming academic year.
"This will be a first trial and will occur gradually and experimentally," said Noura al Merri, director of the special education department at the Ministry of Education.
"We want to evaluate the success of this type of integration," she said, pointing out that the disabilities involved "mental, motor and hearing impairments, as well as visual weakness and blindness, speech impairments, autism, learning difficulties and behavioural and health problems".
The project is scheduled to begin in September with 2,716 kindergarten and primary classes.
The ministry said it would be training teachers, supervisors and mentors to prepare them to work with the pupils.
A three-day workshop in special-needs education was held for teachers this week at the Regional Centre for Educational Planning in Sharjah. It was conducted under the supervision of the international Victor Pineda Foundation, an educational non-profit organisation that promotes safeguarding the rights and dignity of young people with disabilities, and included case studies, problem solving and new educational techniques and trends.
Around 40 special-needs teachers, supervisors and school principals participated in this training programme, Ms al Merri said. "The ministry's initiative is also meant to encourage public schools to train special-needs supervisors and at the same time authorise them to be official trainers for their colleagues at schools," she said. Participants were told to focus on each pupil's intellectual capabilities and skills, rather than on their physical disabilities.
"The department plans to continue organising a series of training workshops and programmes, to prepare a large number of schools for special-needs inclusion," Ms al Merri said. She added that the ministry hoped gradually to ensure that all state schools were able to cater for students with disabilities.
Last year, 40 students with different learning disabilities were integrated, in collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs, into state schools in Abu Dhabi.
By putting them into mainstream education, the ministry hopes to "provide them with a normal educational climate, so that the students may benefit from mixing with their peers", Ms al Merri said.
The department of special education has also formed a team of specialists to assess pupils with disabilities or with special needs in the different emirates, cities and educational zones, and draw up individual plans for their education.
Dr Hanif Hassan Ali, the Minister of Education, said in a statement: "We are currently under the process of selecting 10 public schools to receive a group of special-needs students who have visual and audio disabilities and Down syndrome to be included in the next school year."
Ms al Merri said the selection of the pilot schools was based on recommendations by special-needs supervisors at the ministry.
The special education department and the schools facilities department in the Ministry of Education will be equipping schools with teaching tools such as hearing aids, reading glasses, magnifying lenses and computers. The schools will also be fitted with ramps other improved access, she said.
"We are covering all the students' anticipated needs," Ms al Merri said. "So for example, some students may require to have the exam paper read out to them if they have vision impairments, to help them pass without facing any added difficulty in school due to their disability."
The pupils will be placed either in normal classrooms with support or in a resource room with part-time inclusion in general classroom, or in a special education basic classroom. The ministry will also be employing physical therapists and speech therapists, and a departmental team will evaluate pupils each week.
Mowafaq Mustafa, the director of the Future Centre for Special Needs in the capital, has students ranging in age from two to 20 years old at his centre. "In the years I have been working, we have integrated 47 students into normal schools; of course it can be done," he said.
"But integration depends on the disability. Each student has to be taken individually."
Mr Mowafaq believes that students with attention deficit disorder and dyslexia should be integrated into the mainstream. "These types of students need to be in a normal environment in order to evolve," he said. "But, the thing is, even if the kid is able and ready to go to a normal school, I would never recommend it unless the school is ready to accept this student."
He said the problem so far had been a lack of equipped schools for students with disabilities.
A federal law issued in 2006 stipulates that all academic institutes must accommodate students with special needs, but there are still few schools in the private sector qualified to enrol them.
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