Before the start of the new school year, after the adoption of the new law on primary education, we remind you of the topic on which CIVIL Media has been working intensively in the past period. Is Macedonian society ready for total inclusion of people with disabilities?
The text was originally published on July 18.
On July 9, at a government session, the text of the Draft Law on Primary Education was adopted, which has been submitted for adoption in the Parliament. In the new draft law, a comprehensive strategy has been included that is focused on an inclusive education system for all students with disabilities.
It is precisely inclusiveness that stirred the public. Some experts support the idea, but some consider that in this and such social and educational system in the country, it is simply impossible, and could prove as counterproductive.
We spoke with professors Jasmina Trosanska and Mirjana Najcevska about the advantages and the weaknesses of the new draft law, whether the educational system is ready for full inclusion, whether society is ready, what priorities have to be realized in the direction of implementing this idea.
INCLUSION NEITHER BEGINS, NOR ENDS WITH EDUCATION
Professor Trosanska stresses that inclusion implies including people with disabilities in society, adding that in order to prepare them, work should start from the moment we have learned about them.
“For children revealed at an early age of having disabilities, it is necessary for us to take all measures to include them in pre-school. Because it is there that inclusion begins. It is there that children build their views. Later, these children will be prepared to be included in the regular system of education. Today we are witnessing that a great part of these children are not accepted in kindergartens. There are many children who are not accepted because teachers cannot deal with them. Because they have too many children. If we include that child, which has not gone to kindergarten, immediately into primary education, it will be a real shock”, says Trosanska.
Professor Najcevska, on the other hand, insists that one must understand that schools do not function as separate entities in a community.
“The community is the one that should support the school. This is precisely the idea of inclusion, that teachers are not to cope by themselves in school, but that they receive incredibly great support from the entire community. This means that every child with a disability is automatically supported by special resource centers that give support with special defectologists, or professional help that they need, medical assistance, assistance from NGOs and, certainly, with greater involvement of parents. This is not about throwing the child with disabilities in school and saying do whatever you want with the child. Rather building an entire system of support for the entire school as well, for the teacher, and for all the children in the class in which the child is, and for the child itself”, says Najcevska.
AN INTERNATIONAL CLASSIFICATION OF FUNCTIONALITIES NEEDS TO BE CARRIED OUT
Najcevska also considers that the Law has to include absolute inclusion as something that implies respecting what constitutes equal right to education for all children.
“This is not related only to the children, but also represents building a society in which we recognize diversity. Because that recognition begins from here. I would recommend for the law to include very rigid, very strict norms, with which inclusion in the community will be imputed. What should be done further is to find ways how to enable this”, says Najcevska, insisting that 98% of children with disabilities can and have to be included in the regular education system.
Professor Trosanska, on the other hand, says that there are children with combined disabilities, who if assessed properly, will bring us to the conclusion that they will not manage in the community and regular schools, but still, we must find a way in which they will be educated and will be visiting a facility that will educate them and maximise their abilities.
“Therefore, first and foremost, that international classification of functionalities has started being prepared, for all children with disabilities to be checked functionally. When I say all, it means all! The children should first be counted. We here in Macedonia have no records of how many people there are with disabilities, and how many of them are children. For example, I do not know whether the Ministry has data on how many first-graders with special needs there will be in September. This is necessary, for us to know to plan the capacities. Imagine, if there are too many children in a regular school, and there is no defectologist. Many schools have just a pedagogue or psychologist, some have a defectologist and some have a municipal defectologist. So we do not have the staff. What is most important is to count them, to take records by functionality, how many children there are and what type of disability they have, that is, what type of need they have. In inclusive society we will not be looking at their weaknesses, rather their strengths. And then the children are placed in an appropriate place, in a proper setting of education”, says Trosanska.
POOR EDUCATION SYSTEM CREATES PROBLEMS AMONG CHILDREN
We, as a society, are building an education system that is unfriendly towards children, considers Najcevska, stressing that many measurements and researches have shown that we have many aggressive children in education.
“Children that do not know what discipline is, who do not know the boundaries in behaviour, who do not have elementary, general culture of mutual behaviour. Our entire education system is very bad. It is bad also for children who do not have any particular problems. That is, we are creating problems in children when they enter the education process. And now, if we put in the children that have disabilities, the question is how this education system will reflect on them. However, this is something that we need to perceive, to identify, and to find a way how to build an education system that will be good for all children, both for children with disabilities and for children without any particular problems”, says Najcevska.
Education has the purpose of preparing citizens, that is, persons with special needs and all other children from the neorotypical population, to be prepared to contribute in society, but we have a totally different picture, considers Trosanska.
“Our education is in crisis, where many children are unprepared after finishing school. When they finish primary school, very few of them are prepared for secondary education, hence a large part of them go to general high school, and very few to vocational high schools. Children with disabilities, however, almost do not even attend high school. Very often they are considered as attending, but are not. A large part of children with disabilities that do attend regular education, but when the school cannot meet their needs, or the child cannot cope in the setting, are often dependent on a personal assistant and stay in school for only two to three hours. That is not education. That is just keeping records!”, she is decisive, stressing the fact that inclusion implies bringing the services that the child with disabilities needs in the environment in which it is.
WHAT DO THE CITIZENS THINK?
Although there is desire among citizens for inclusive society, there is, however, also scepticism in regards to how much the state and the education system have the capacity to further implement it. CIVIL Media spoke with the citizens in Veles and Skopje, who were divided in the opinions on whether full inclusion in education is needed or not.
“I think that it is great and that we are ready for such a step”, “I think they can learn together. With greater attention to them, they will be able to achieve the desired success”, are some of the responses of the people in Veles.
However, there were responses that suggested that the entire process of inclusion will be a bit difficult, and that it would impair children with special education needs. There were also responses that contained discriminatory and insulting terminology for people with special needs, such as “handicapped that should have separate teaching”, “inclusion depends on the degree of retardation”, and similar.
“That is nice, but they should be separated. They will be teasing each other the whole time. The other children will be mocking them”, said one citizen.
Unlike the survey that CIVIL Media conducted in Skopje, where citizens saw the problem in the unpreparedness of the state to fully implement the law, the people in Veles in general, at least those who were surveyed, thought that the problem is in the children themselves who will not fit in the regular education system.
DECLARATIVELY WE ARE ADVANCED, BUT IF WE SCRATCH BENEATH THE SURFACE, UNBELIEVABLY GREAT RESISTENCE WILL DEVELOP
“I am glad things are moving forward. But in order for us to be able to move forward faster, we have to bring reasonable solutions”, says professor Trosanska. She thinks that our society is not completely ready and that unreasonable solutions are still being made, and even that people allow themselves to insult others and hurt them.
“We are still a nation that does not know to control itself emotionally. We still have uncontrolled emotions, and we easily burst out and say all kinds of things in those moments. We still have people that use terminology that insults. We have people who look strangely at people with disabilities on the streets. For example, some laugh at them, some look at them because they feel sorry for them, some sympathise, some think it is contagious, some are afraid that their child could be hurt from the child with special needs. We still do not have enough information about all this. We are not sufficiently developed. However, it is good that things are starting to happen. But in order for them to happen properly, we need to bring reasonable solutions. Because in such situations, the parents of the children with special needs and the children with special needs will suffer the most, if we make a mistake. All of us will be talking about this topic, today we will quarrel on this topic, tomorrow on another. But this topic for them is eternal”, concluded Trosanska.
Professor Najcevska shares a similar opinion, who says that when it comes to inclusion, we must not leave ourselves to the general perception and general opinion, but should find systematic solutions that will impose inclusion, because only in this way we can build a system that will be equal for all.
“I do not think that parents of children who do not have disabilities are ready to accept inclusiveness in schools in which their children go to. Very often those parents give socially desired answers, declaratively they want to present themselves as being advanced, full of understanding and so on. However, if we scratch the surface just a bit, we will see that they have incredibly great resistance that is characteristic for some primitive societies in which disability is God’s punishment and that children and people with disabilities should be hidden, should be kept away from the eyes of the public”, she says.
WE ASPIRE FOR THE EU, BUT GIVE RESISTENCE FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION – THIS HAS TO CHANGE!
We also spoke with Blagica Dimitrovska from the Association for promotion and development of inclusive society “Inclusion”, from Kumanovo on whether as a society we are ready for full inclusion.
Dimitrovska welcomes the new law on primary education, outlining that as an association they will make efforts to promote the law, because according to them, it is high time for a legal obligation to be brought for children with disabilities to be included in the regular education system equally with the other children.
“There is resistance among teachers, there is resistance among parents of children with typical development, and there is least resistance among children, among students. They accept children with disabilities. The new law provides for the curriculum to be carried out at home until necessary, if the health condition of any student worsens, regardless of whether the child is with a disability or not, which really is according to European standards. We aspire for membership in the EU, but do not agree with inclusive education. Here there has to be a process where there will be adaptation in school. Maybe the law is not ideal and will undergo additional changes, but is much better than the current one. That is the kind of people we are, if there is no punishment, we do not respect the laws. When this starts to function, then the process will quickly start happening”, thinks Dimitrovska, reminding that the state has already ratified several conventions with which it commits for children with disabilities and people with disabilities to have equal rights with others.
How does inclusion function in reality?
A year ago, CIVIL Media worked on a story about Viktor Tosevski, then graduate at the State Music and Ballot School Center “Ilija Nikolovski – Lui”, today a freshmen at the Academy of Audio and Visual Arts.
Viktor was born with impaired vision, but despite the numerous daily obstacles, he did not give up on his greatest wish to become a musician. When we met him, he practically had no conditions to work in the secondary music school. In addition, Viktor did not even have transportation like all the other students. He had one free school ticket, but just one. Can you imagine how a student with impaired vision can go on public transportation busses? Moreover, Viktor did not have an assistant. The only companion was his mother, who was deprived of the possibility to work and earn, just so that she could realize her child’s dream, hence having to pay by herself for the transportation.
Although many times, from the moment when he enrolled in the school, he had been promised that he would be provided with appropriate equipment, that did not happen. At least not until the moment when his harmony teacher, Damjan Temkov, revolted with what was happening with one of his best students, turned to CIVIL for help. After CIVIL’s story created reactions in the public, the school immediately managed to provide a computer with special programs that enabled him to follow classes according to his needs. And the help was justified. Viktor was declared the best student in his generation.
The story about Viktor is just a small illustration about how our society treats not only children with special needs, but also talented and advanced students. That is why when such laws are prepared, it has to be done systematically and gradually. So that all children can be covered.
WHAT NOW?
It is very important for those who will be making decisions in the following period to take into consideration all the people with disabilities and to make reasonable solutions that will be in favour, and not at harm, to those for whom they are actually intended for.
In order to have inclusion in the true sense of the word, we must look at the strengths of people with disabilities, instead of their shortcomings, and depending on that, determine what type of teaching is best for every child individually.
What is most important, and something our interlocutors emphasise, is that society may have divided opinions on this issue, but persons facing these problems are the final voice before a conclusion is reached. It is, though, something that they live with every day.
Topic prepared by:
Maja Ivanovska (interview with Jasmina Trosanska and Mirjana Najcevska)
Biljana Jordanovska (interview with Blagica Dimitrovska)
Biljana Jordanovska , Angela Petrovska, Arian Mehmeti (surveys)
camera: Dehran Muratov and Arian Mehmeti
photo: Angela Petrovska
editing: Biljana Jordanovska
