Former Labour Finance Minister Lino Spiteri is to head a working group to review the inclusive and special education sector.
The group will include special school headteacher George Borg and educators Anne Marie Callus, Joseph Cauchi and Micheline Sciberras.
The ministry's policy unit is to provide the necessary administrative and secretarial support.
Launching the group yesterday, Education Minister Louis Galea said the initiative also concurred with World Disabled Persons Day being celebrated today.
The group, which is to present a report to the minister by the end of June, is to address the situation of inclusive education in kindergarten classes, in primary, secondary, post-secondary, and special schools in Malta and Gozo, in both the public and non-public sectors.
It is to assess the policy and practice regarding inclusive education, giving special attention to the roles and functions of the respective officials, staff, and structures, and the service delivery at the different levels, including the transition to adult life, and in particular the service being offered by the facilitators.
The group has to report on the situation of special schools in Malta and Gozo and recommend the role and functions these schools should serve for children and students with disability in view of the national curriculum and an inclusive education policy.
It is to report on the human and financial resources dedicated to this area, on their effective use and value for money, and to advise on the financial sustainability of the current provision in both mainstream and special schools, and to recommend on the resources needed and how the provision of the service in this field can become more cost-effective.
The group is invited to submit the recommendations it deems appropriate for further sustainable progress in the field of inclusive education, including any legislative provision that could be necessary.
In the course of its proceedings the working group is to consult with the main stakeholders in the field, including persons with a disability, their families, educators, professionals and non-governmental organisations.
Dr Galea said inclusive education provided the educational environment where disabled and non-disabled children learned together, where possible in mainstream school settings.
On the other hand, special education was a provision for students who had a disability that necessitated the provision of special and appropriate educational services.
In the 1990s, Malta started implementing the concept of inclusion and witnessed a substantial increase in disabled pupils attending mainstream schools and a decrease in students in special schools, enabling a more specialised and individualised service.
In 2000, the national minimum curriculum emphasised inclusive education as a major principle. The inclusive education policy was published that the same year.
Dr Galea said there were five special schools catering for approximately 265 students. There were 120 teachers, facilitators and kindergarten assistants or supply kindergarten assistants.
In the mainstream state primary and secondary schools, there were about 770 facilitators offering their services to just under 1,000 students with a disability. Some 380 students with a disability attended church and independent schools.
While acknowledging the progress made, Dr Galea stressed the need for further development in the sector. The state, he said, was committed to further improving quality education to all students and to help them develop their potential to the maximum.
Such a right necessitated that these students were assured of the support and the means to access the national curriculum, ideally in mainstream schools, according to the students' individual needs.
Mr Spiteri said that although this was an inclusive society, not everyone was really included.
Education helped gear one towards inclusivity and inclusive education contributed more to learning.
The workshop intended to do a good job with the task it had been given and he would be proposing that it used its initial weeks to listen to what the stakeholders had to say and establish a precise view of what each expected.