The role of special schools and training centres

Students with individual educational needs should be provided inclusive education in a mainstream environment whenever possible. However, students who gain more in a selective set-up and environment should continue to attend special schools.

This was what the Working Group composed of chairman Lino Spiteri, principal education officer George Borg, National Commissioner for Persons with a Disability official Anne-Marie Callus, Higher Secondary Education teacher Joe Cauchi and Education Ministry policy coordinator Micheline Sciberras, recommended in the Inclusive and Special Education Review.

Mr Spiteri said that the two-track policy of special and mainstream education should be maintained. "That is, in fact, what the existing system is targeting. The group's review is intended to revise and re-focus the targets, to build upon the positives that have been implemented to date.

"The advantages of inclusive education are set out by nature itself. Society is a rainbow. To leave any one colour out would make the rainbow lose its character and diminish its beauty. Inclusive education is advantageous to other students as much as to students with individual educational needs. Inclusion in education, as opposed to avoidable segregation during the years of education contributes to a more inclusive society," he said.

"As far as possible students with individual needs should be given their education provision in mainstream schools through a teaching cadre strengthened to ensure, among other things, that teachers and learning support assistants can play a dynamic part, together with students, parents and carers in drawing up and implementing Individualised Education Plans."

On the other hand, the group recommended that the existing set-up of special schools should be restructured to develop them, as far as possible, into resource centres which would optimise the utilisation of valuable human and capital resources to provide support to inclusive mainstream schools, and in time, to train personnel in those schools.

Such resource centres would be able to provide for the individual needs of students who because of the degree or nature of their disability would benefit more from special education while still having a set inclusion plan in their Individualised Education Plan, while at the same time receive programmed visits by special needs students attending mainstream schools who can benefit from utilising the specialised resources in such centres. The group also recommended that with time, the resource centres would offer training to mainstream teachers, facilitators and other learning support assistants, who could make use of specialised resources and equipment as part of their training.

The centres should be staffed by personnel specialised in providing for individual educational needs, and by personal assistants, trained and charged to provide physical and personal care as may be required by the students. Job descriptions should correspond to the norms observed within the European Union. Resource gaps such as more frequent provision of physiotherapy and speech and language therapy, as well as the introduction of occupational therapy, should be addressed. During the Repositioning Plan, the group suggested that the Education Division should be allocated appropriate professional resources to give it control and enable it to deliver these services.

The group also said that the management structure of special schools, based on a general model too dependant on school population, and the level of maintenance resources allocated, must be reviewed, irrespective of whether or not special schools are converted into resource centres.

Furthermore, parents interviewed by the group expressed concern that persons who reach the special schools leaving age - 19 - and who would benefit from moving to Adult Training Centres, are not always able to do so, and instead remain attending special schools. This is because the centres, which teach basic education, independent living skills, personal skills, cooking and food safety, crafts, gardening, drama and music, and supported employment, are sometimes unable to accept additional students because of overpopulation. This in turn creates entry restrictions to new students at special schools.

Apart from this, the centres also encounter problems of lack of space, lack of professional support workers and support workers to carry out the Individual Care Plans, and lack of adequate training to staff, which restrict the flow of special school students to these centres.

The group believes that these centres could also become resource centres, which could provide a useful contribution to students with intellectual disabilities who leave special and mainstream schools.

Transforming schools into resource centres, the group emphasises, "would maximise utilisation of scarce specialised human and capital resources at the points of highest individual need and highest social return."