Hello, now we are going to talk about inclusion and this section is based on the report published by UNESCO in 2009, called 'Towards Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities: A Guideline', which you will find in the Resources section of the course. One of the most important things you need to realize ... (is) that certainly over 140 million children do not ... go to school and the figures seem to increase. Now, the aim of the inclusive education is to respond to the learning needs of all the children, whatever their needs are, and this is defined in the 'UN Convention on the Rights of the Child' from 1989 and 2009. Inclusive education encourages ... stakeholders to reflect on the following obstacles ... to inclusion. The first one is lack of teacher training. The second one is inappropriate programs. And the third issue is inappropriate pedagogical methods. Also the fact that ... ... ... ... the rooms are not easily accessible in schools. To reduce these ... obstacles, it is important first to raise awareness about inclusion. The teaching staff needs to reach a consensus around the specific learning needs of the different children of the classroom and the school. There needs to be an analysis of the situation of the school. 'What did we put in place already for inclusion? What did we not do for inclusion?' There needs to be a reform of the system, the school system, so that inclusion can be a reality in the school and finally it is important to be supported and to support local projects. We'll go back to this later on. Inclusive education is justif(ied) from several points of view. From the pedagogical point of view: it is very important, the school needs to address the learning differences of all the children as stipulated. As I said, in the UN convention on the rights of the children ... it is mandatory for the school to include all the children. From the social point of view also inclusive education is justified because we confront it with differences, with different learning styles, with different children with different learning needs. (It) leads the children to become citizens (who) are open to differences and (who) can live in peace and harmony. From the economical point of view ... ... inclusion is also justified, because it is less expensive to have all the children in the same classroom rather than developing ... an often complicated, specialized system. Obviously ... inclusive education require, requires teacher training. And I think that's the reason why you do this course also. A team ... of specialized member of the staff will then ... interact with the expert who was seeing the children and who ideally should also be in the school. We all know that early identification and early intervention are very important, so the staff must be trained to be able to ... Identify, and I go back to the early predictors of later dyslexia. A supportive system needs to be put in place especially for the school and for the learners with specific needs. The involvement of the parents and the community at large are essential for inclusion to happen and to be sustained. We might ask a few questions around inclusion. First of all, 'how to set up an inclusive program?' Well, it may be necessary to revisit and redefine learning processes within the inclusive setting. Learning happens whenever there is an active participation from the child. So it is not good marks and bad marks in evaluation; it is active participation from the child. The program should be flexible and tailored to the learner's education and needs. You should know that heavy and inflexible programs are the main factors which hinder inclusive education. This is obviously a very demanding task for the teachers, for you. But, with proper training, I think this can be achieved, and that's the reason why you (are) following this course. Now let's look at the financial level. Often, people will say, 'well inclusion is a very nice concept but it costs money'; well you should know that there are things which you can do in the classroom, and which do not cost any money. For example, collaboration between students, coaching between peers, mutual support, involvement of the parents (who) we are going to see is paramount ... to the success of inclusion, and an active pedagogy. Your school, your institution should also try to establish relationships with partners who could support financially; Some of the projects you will be doing ... towards inclusion. Another question we may ask is, 'how to deal with the transition towards an inclusive setting, an inclusive education?' Well ... the educative system must manage this transition, which is not easy and especially the crucial moment(s) for the child, for example, the transition from home to school, the transition from one cycle to another, ... the transition from primary school to secondary school, the possible transition from secondary school to higher education, and more generally, the transition between school and work. The last question we may ask while there are other questions obviously, but another question we may ask is how to induce and sustain changes in the school. Well, there needs to be change both at the level of the national policies to ... inclusion, and at the level of the school. Several factors will determine whether an integrative, an inclusive ... approach is successful or not. First of all it is very important to define well ... ... the role of each of the actors (who) are involved with the child. The school must be supported both morally and financially. The procedures must obey very well defined characteristics so that in the emergency you can make a decision about a child. ... whether you put in place a program for a child which is not working, 'what are we going to do?', et cetera. And the diffusion of information should be promoted so that you are going to spread the word so to speak and induce other school(s) to imitate you. Schools can also help each other very much by sharing experiences and expertise and by developing common policies and common practices, (the) best practices to include all children. Now let me tell you about an example of successful inclusion which is often quoted. It is obviously Finland. In Finland, all the children go to the same school - there is no ... specialized education. And some of the children, depending on their learning needs, are taken by specialists to the back of the classroom, not to another room, but to the back of the classroom. and then they go back, they come back to their seats, and they continue to follow the lessons. So, literally and psychologically, there is no wall anymore, ... ... there are no walls any more between the children with specific learning needs and all the others who all benefit from differences. And as I said they learn from each other and they become citizens open to differences. And if you think about it - now let's come back to dyslexia - if you think about it there are some words around dyslexia which are quite, quite stigmatizing like 'remedial', 'remediation'. There's ... ... no remedial to give to a dyslexic child because he or she learns differently, because of a different organization of the brain. So I much prefer the word 'support'. Some people still talk about 'normal' school, it's obviously 'mainstream' school, so it should be the word. Also, parents often feel guilty when their children ... have Dyslexia or another learning difficulty. One way to avoid ... to reduce the feeling of guilty-ness that ... the parents may have is to involve them in the project of inclusion; this is really paramount and many parents, of course, ... whenever possible. But I can assure you, many parents will be very happy to be involved in the project of inclusion of their child into the school.
