Abstract
After gaining independence, Slovenia has undergone considerable change in the fields of economy, politics, education and others. Following the European trends towards integration and inclusion, and in agreement with the UNESCO's Salamanca statement on education for all, our education acts include the articles specifying the children with special needs, the parents' right to choose the school, the school's duty to adapt the teaching process and equipment for them, and various educational programs for them. The new legislation preserves the continuum of integrated and segregated settings, with the tendency towards inclusion but without major reform in teacher training and education and with little professional development and support for the teachers. The author analyses the process of change towards more inclusive school cultures. It occurs on four levels: individual, organisational, sector and national. The implications for head teacher training and school-based whole staff seminars and workshops are discussed at these levels, and the role of the National Leadership School explained. The paper also deals with the question how the special educators could contribute to the development of effective inclusive education through the continuing professional development of teachers and heads.
Key terms: inclusion; integration; head teachers; organisational culture; professional development; special needs;
Introduction
Slovenia became an independent country in 1991 after the disintegration with Yugoslavia. Representative democracy was introduced and the new constitution adopted. Slovenia is now an associate member of the European Union. The European dimension has also been incorporated in our new education legislation. In 1996 the Organisation and Financing Act, the Pre-school Institutions Act, the Primary Education Act, the Vocational and Professional Education Act and the Adult Education Act were adopted, whereas the Higher Education Act was adopted back in 1993. Article 12 of the Primary Education Act (1996) enhances the possibility to find a way for the children with special needs to be integrated into the ordinary school programme, so that "the school adapts the methods and forms of work to them and makes it possible for them to participate in additional lessons and other forms of individual and group help", whereas Article 49 declares the right of the parents to enrol their child with special needs in their local school. In July 2000, after five(!) years in the parliamentary procedure, the new Act on Direction-setting (i.e. program selection) for the Children with Special Needs was finally adopted. It introduces new terminology, i.e. "children with special needs" instead of "children with developmental disorders" and specifies the educational programs including adapted methods and extra help but same educational standards; adapted lower- or same-standard programs, or special programs, into which the children are directed by the direction-setting committee of experts. It anticipates the integration of all children with special needs who can cope with additional expert support, adapted teaching techniques, special equipment, smaller groups etc. It also declares the obligation of the school to prepare the individual education plan for the child with special needs. The changes will be introduced gradually. In part they follow the developing global movement towards inclusion, but with the tendency to preserve some good practice from the past. More attention in the future must be paid to ensuring access to education for all children with special needs without excluding them from their families and local communities, and to developing new and old roles of the special educators. Much still remains to be done in the legislative domain. The regulations for the implementation of the latest act are still missing. The programs need to be prepared and other conditions fulfilled. The statement procedures as regulated by the old bills have been discontinued, old committees of experts dismissed, but the new law cannot function without the new regulations. This has had very sad consequences for individual children waiting for a proper placement in a suitable education program who have temporarily been left unattended.
Apart from the operational level with dilemmas about a variety of placements for these children and support for them, serious considerations will have to be made by the professionals, communities, parents of the children with special needs and the public about a deeper and more significant change, a change of integration to the whole philosophy of inclusion, i.e. providing education for all children in their local schools and kindergartens by developing school cultures inclusive of all individual learners and their specific needs, not only the former categories of the children with a disability, handicap, disorder, problem or impairment, but each and every individual child. I must argue that both in terms of the nation and in terms of the profession, neither the teachers nor the special educators are ready for the philosophy of inclusion.
The process of change towards more inclusive schools at the national level
The process of developing inclusion occurs on four levels: individual,
organisational, sector and national levels. At the national level the necessary
arrangements in Slovenia have or are being made for the: legislation,
financing, group size, staffing ratio, and training.
By referring to
training we have in mind the current teacher education and training, specialist
education and training (Defectology, Social Pedagogy, ...) and the professional
development of head teachers.
An attempt will now be made to present this
segment of change at the national level. The public has no influence whatsoever
on the two universities (both are state-maintained) because they have full
autonomy; consequently, there is little influence on teacher preparation
programs. A unique old-fashioned parallel system that produces two kinds of
alumni, teachers and defectologists, is perpetuating and reinventing itself by
a somewhat "defective logic", becoming a laugh in the face of the professionals
who believe in inclusion. Therefore we will constrain ourselves to head teacher
training.
By the nature of their job, the head teachers' responsibility
extends beyond the individual level, beyond the responsibility for their own
attitudes and actions. Furthermore, they have the power and authority within
their organisations for the long-term processes, such as developing school
cultures that promote collaboration, inclusion and learning for all. Therefore
the professional development of heads and principals is strongly emphasised in
our new education legislation. In 1995, this lead to establishing a small and
flexible centre for leadership in education with 12 people on staff who deliver
the compulsory program, in-service seminars for heads and whole staff training,
organise annual national conferences on education management and are involved
in projects and research. It is regulated by the law that all heads must
complete the management training program leading to the Headship Licence. The
program consists of six three-day modules:
introductory module (head teacher as manager and leader, team building,
learning styles, the management of change);
organisational theory and
leadership (models of school organisation, school leadership);
planning and
decision making (vision, levels of planning, decision-making strategies);
head teacher skills (managing conflict, running meetings, observing
lessons, communicating);
human resource management (climate and culture,
motivation, staff development);
legislation.
Most of them also take part at the follow-up modules for holders of the
Headship Licence (acting heads and principals), conferences for deputy heads
and other events. As inclusion has become very topical also in the Slovene
context, two national-level events will take place in 2001. The first is a
newly prepared follow-up module on inclusion to be delivered by a lecturer from
the Leadership School and by formerly integrated adults who are professional
teachers (accompanied by an interpreter for the deaf, for instance). There will
be six 90-minute sessions in two days. The content will be: developing
inclusive school culture by collaboration and team work; whole-staff
development events; regular contacts of the head with individual teachers;
communication with parents, learning support centres and special schools;
working in interdisciplinary teams; new legislation; exchange of personal
experiences; emerging questions.
The second nation-wide event will be the
Fifth Annual Conference on Management in Education, dedicated to the inclusion
of children with special needs and the roles of principals and heads in
kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and music education. It is to be
organised in 2001 (Portoroz, 9-11 April). (More details can be obtained from:
www.solazaravnatelje.si ). Participation is expected by more than half of
the heads from the total of 500 primary and 200 secondary (general and
vocational) schools.
Links with other teacher training institutions and
with the special education sector are also being developed by the Leadership
School, in order to ensure continued and focused work in educational
organisations.
Sector and organisational levels
The processes going on at the sector level can be explained by both,
mainstream vs. special education as two parallel streams, and by age-related
sectors, respectively, the latter including public kindergartens, compulsory
education (primary schools), secondary education (general, technical,
vocational, including week-day boarding institutions) and higher education.
In Slovenia there has been a long tradition of co-operation between
mainstream and special schools in individual cases of integration of children
with special needs.
For example, let us look at those with speech and
hearing impairments. In the early 1970's some hard-of-hearing children were
integrated in ordinary kindergartens and schools. Other hearing-impaired
children and those with speech and language problems attended pre-school or
compulsory education at one of the three special schools for the deaf in the
country. (We are a two-million nation between Austria, Hungary, Croatia and
Italy.) In the 1980's the speech therapists from the Centre for the
Rehabilitation of Hearing and Speech (now School for the Deaf and
Hard-of-Hearing) in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, developed a
long-lasting tradition of early detection and rehabilitation of speech and
language problems in public kindergartens and some primary schools. The same
institution now organises the following events connected to integration:
early intervention programs for the families (parents, siblings, child) of
deaf and hard-of-hearing children, including counselling and training;
specialist support for integrated pre-school children and staff; integration
and regular visits of children in the special school kindergarten to the local
kindergarten once a week; partial special pre-school provision (once or twice a
week) for integrated children; reverse integration (a hearing group in the
special kindergarten); grouping of hearing children with those with cochlear
implants three times a week; the signing deaf children joining the hearing
group to teach them Sign once a week; the introductory meetings of the pupil,
his or her parents, integration advisor and all teaching staff before the
integration in the first year of the school; after-school speech training,
learning support and coaching (once a week), either in the dispensary at the
Centre or in the school (peripatetic service, i.e. outreach therapist or
teacher); specialist support for the teachers; counselling for the parents of
the child with special needs; semester workshop for the integrated pupils and
for their parents; monthly meetings of integrated deaf and hard-of-hearing
adolescents (a support group) and other. In the area of continuous professional
development they also organise annual seminars (3 days) for form and subject
teachers of integrated deaf children in Slovenian kindergartens, primary and
secondary schools.
The institutions in other domains of special education
organise similar provisions for children, families and ordinary school teachers
and are actively seeking possibilities for the integration of as many children
as possible. In the last twelve years the numbers of integrated deaf and
hard-of-hearing children, for instance, have doubled, despite severely
decreasing birth-rates in Slovenia.
Special schools and Development Units within ordinary kindergartens can
be found on one side of the continuum of educational forms and provisions as
envisaged by the Ministry of Education (White Paper on Education in the
Republic of Slovenia, 1996:140):
special institution;
special unit in
an ordinary school or kindergarten;
ordinary class or group with periodic
special treatment or instruction for specific themes or subjects by the class
teacher, special educator, psychologist, social pedagogue or other; ordinary
class with additional assistance within and outside the classroom by the
special educator, psychologist, social pedagogue or other;
ordinary class
with additional assistance outside the classroom by the special educator,
psychologist, social pedagogue or other; ordinary class with a higher degree of
additional assistance by the teacher and special educator (or other);
ordinary class with normal additional assistance by the teacher;
ordinary class without any assistance.
Despite the fact that there are still some cases of integration without
assistance, the so-called silent integration, or sometimes even imposed
integration, there have been many actions taken towards establishing good
provisions for the integration of children with special needs also by ordinary
schools and kindergartens at the other side of the continuum.
They are
active in professional development of their staff: they organise school-based
seminars for all the staff on integration, and send individual teachers on
specialist seminars on children with special needs.
In order to move from
integration, implying the assimilation of the special child to be more like
everyone else, towards inclusion in the sense of accommodation of the school or
kindergarten to suit each individual's (child or adult) need to learn and
develop in the least restrictive environment, the schools and kindergartens in
Slovenia will have to compile theoretical information and practical experiences
from two sets of topics in the future:
1. individualisation; children with
different special needs; specialist techniques, tools and equipment;
2.
collaboration; team work; communication; colleague support; inclusive culture.
It should be noted that in Slovenia there exists only one real middle
management position, that of the deputy head (assistant principal). Thus we
have no deputies for pastoral care, no staff development co-ordinators and no
SENCOs (special needs co-ordinators). All responsibilities for these domains
thus remain with the principal or head teacher. In larger schools and
kindergartens, children with special needs have traditionally been in the
custody of their own Counselling Service consisting of one or two, rarely more
full-time staff chosen from educational psychologists, special educators,
speech therapists, social workers or pedagogues. School Counselling Service has
been the motor of all integration processes, working with the child with
special needs, his peers, his family, his teachers, peripatetic specialist
support, special schools, and last but not least, with the school management.
Between the mainstream and special education there is much space for old
and new connecting structures, such as learning support centres, resource
centres, counselling centres, counselling teams, emergency teacher support;
know-how demonstrators; inclusion consultants etc.
In-between there is also
enough space for various formal and informal organisations of people who are
also to be taken account of., such as:
associations of adult people with
special needs,
parent groups,
non-governmental organisations,
the
Society of Defectologists of Slovenia,
other professional associations,
charities,
teacher unions,
volunteers,
various other interest
groups.
Individual level
Let me conclude at the individual level, by implementing change towards
more inclusive school cultures by ourselves, each citizen accepting his or her
own responsibility. Any deep change in attitudes and actions can only occur
deep in our hearts and in our minds. We cannot change anything but ourselves.
As a former teacher and special educator, and a head-teacher trainer at the
Slovenian Leadership School, my responsibility and mission is to build bridges
between general and special education, to disseminate the idea of including as
many children as possible in their local schools and kindergartens, to work
with head teachers and principals on the one hand, and with whole staffs on the
other, on the development of collaborative and inclusive school cultures by the
people who are teaching and learning to know, to be, and to live together.
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