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Moldova on its Way to Inclusive Schools
Lucia Gavriliţă
Persons with disabilities constitute one of the most vulnerable groups in Moldavian society. In 2010 the number of persons with disabilities was 176,253 (15,153 of whom were children)1. Moldova has adopted and ratified a number of international acts and conventions2, including the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (9 July 2010), and, at the same time, has elaborated a legislative framework aimed at ensuring the full citizens’ rights of persons with disabilities3. However, most of these rights as set out in the legislation are not applied in practice due to a lack of implementation mechanisms.
Starting from early childhood, persons with disabilities are marginalised. It begins when children with disabilities are not given access to basic education in mainstream educational institutions due to several factors: a lack of or limited basic facilities (ramps, support bars, adapted furniture, adapted sanitary facilities) required to ensure their accessibility to kindergartens, schools and universities; teaching staff that are not prepared to work with them; school curricula that are not flexible and adapted to these children’s special educational needs. Later, as adults, persons with disabilities face difficulties in accessing vocational training programmes and labour inclusion. This vicious circle makes persons with disabilities vulnerable.
Even though the Republic of Moldova is trying to develop the process of inclusive education, children with disabilities continue to remain segregated, marginalised, and restricted in exercising their rights to basic education in an inclusive environment4. In the Republic of Moldova, the education of children with disabilities is carried out in the following ways: education in special institutions, home schooling and education in mainstream schools.
Main Challenges
A comprehensive policy on inclusive education and practical mechanisms for integrating children with disabilities into mainstream educational institutions have not yet been developed. First of all, there is no mechanism for evaluating children according to their needs and providing recommendations for the elaboration of an Individual Education Plan. Secondly, the mainstream schools are not yet ready to accept children with disabilities, because:
- most of the schools lack basic facilities to ensure accessibility for children with disabilities;
- the teachers are not familiar with the process of inclusive education and lack abilities to work with children with special educational needs5, nor are they trained in elaborating and implementing an Individual Education Plan;
- support services (support teachers, personal assistants, transportation facilities for children with disabilities) for children with special educational needs in school are not stipulated by law.
Another problem is that local public authorities cannot budget additional funds for support services such as support teachers, personal assistants and adapted transportation, because there is no legal framework for providing support services for children with disabilities in schools. The existing support services have been developed by non-governmental organisations, such as the “Speranţa” Center for social inclusion and equal opportunities for people with disabilities, which provides support services for 420 children with disabilities who are integrated in mainstream educational institutions.
Priorities on the way to “inclusive schools”
- The government needs to establish mechanisms for ensuring the accessibility of children with disabilities to mainstream educational institutions and monitor the process of implementation.
- The government needs to develop mechanisms for providing support services in inclusive education for children with special needs: support teachers, personal assistants, adapted transportation; it also needs to develop training programmes in inclusive education for school teaching staff.
- The Ministry of Education needs to change the approach of its Medical-Psychological-Pedagogical Commission from a medical to a social one and strengthen the capacity of the commission to perform a multifunctional evaluation of children with special educational needs as well as to offer recommendations for the inclusion of children with disabilities in the mainstream education system and to provide recommendations for the elaboration of Individual Education Plans.
Cooperation with Austria
Cooperation with Austria complements “Speranţa’s” activities through the sharing of good practice, experience and knowledge in inclusive education. “Speranţa’s” main goal for the next period of time is to develop, in partnership with the Pestalozzi Foundation, four regional resource centres that will provide assistance for the northern, southern and central parts of Moldova. Our cooperation with KulturKontakt will allow us to train 16 national trainers in inclusive education topics and help them to elaborate modules for the regions. In this context, we would like very much to learn from best practice examples in Austria, in particular to find out how specific regions are organised with regard to inclusive education and how we can apply the same approach to Moldova’s education system.
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1 Ministry of Labour, Social Protection and Family, Press Service: http://bit.ly/hR4AHU, [accessed 28 February 2011].
2 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948); European Social Charter, partially ratified by Moldova through Governmental Decision no. 484-XV of 28 September 2001.
3 National Strategy on Social Inclusion of People with Disabilities 2010-2013.
4 The national strategy “Education for All” approved by the government for the period 2007-2015; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, ratified by Moldova on 9 July 2010, Art. 24;
5 Ministry of Education and Youth, UNICEF Moldova, Baseline Study on Basic Education in the Republic of Moldova from the Perspective of Child-Friendly Schools, Chisinau 2008, http://bit.ly/eqyCpR, pp. 29-30, [accessed 5 March 2011].
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Lucia Gavriliţă studied “Management of the Non-profit Organizations” and “Methods and Pedagogy in Primary Education” in Chişinău (Moldova). She is Executive Director of the “Speranţa” Center for social inclusion and equal opportunities for people with disabilities in Moldova and author of numerous publications and policy documents.
www.speranta.md/
