Needs of the disabled

The Down Syndrome Association fully agrees with the statement made by the Equal Partners Foundation that the Budget has forgotten the intellectually disabled. Again, the government has put aside the needs of persons with intellectual disability: professional education at 16+ to all, adapted to their specific needs, a professional supported employment scheme, a sheltered employment scheme, independent living, an adequate pension.

In our opinion, the Budget 2011 is sending the message that lifelong learning for persons with intellectual disability is not an important issue!

We wish to quote from What is Lifelong Learning? The View from the European Commission: “The European Commission specifies that learning opportunities should be available to all citizens on an ongoing basis. In practice, this should mean that citizens each have individual learning pathways, suitable to their needs and interests at all stages of their lives. The content of learning, the way learning is accessed and where it takes place may vary depending on the learner and their learning requirements.

“Lifelong learning is also about providing second chances to update basic skills and to offer learning opportunities at more advanced levels. All this means that formal systems of provision need to become much more open and flexible so that such opportunities can truly be tailored to the needs of the learner or, indeed, the potential learner.”

Persons in authority please note!