Tereza Lusková: Special schools …For whom?

The concept of special schools divides the society into several groups, according to different perceptions of the concept. Are there special schools for sick, disabled, children with mental health issues or for ethnically different ones? Unfortunately, the trend in the Czech Republic is primarily to regard these children as problematic, actually, no matter what kind of school they attend. Many parents do not want their children to study in one class with disabled children because of stereotypical thinking and prejudices which are deeply rooted and typical in the Czech society. The argument that disabled children will impede the lessons or that they need an individual approach are anachronisms and we cannot use this argument in general.

Some children with some kind of disability, they should have the same right to education as healthy children if they are at least a bit autonomous. The schools are not just a place where everyone has to learn effectively and every day gain a wide range of new knowledge. We shouldn’t forget that the school is an institution through which the social identities are formed. It is a complex process of human development which has an influence on children´s moral values which they will probably apply in their own social life. The exclusion from society in an early age can affect the life of the disabled children and also of children of ethnic minorities, especially Roma children who take place in the special schools more often in our region. They can feel lonely and they can have problems to become a full-fledged part of society and live a social and active life. Moreover, because of denied access to regular primary schools, they have fewer chances to continue with education.

Not only that they do not have access to regular school, at the same time they have a problem with the availability of special schools. Very often they have to commute tens of kilometres because special schools have not been accessible everywhere yet. Actually, this problem is not only about the special schools, but also the regular schools are lacking. According to experts, the success and failure of integration mainly depend on the imagination, conscientiousness, and abilities of families, teachers and school leaders. If parents are interested in placing a child in a regular primary school, and state secure funding, it is responsibility of the director to create appropriate conditions. All school staff has to manage that children become respected pupils and create an atmosphere for them to learn and have the same rights and responsibilities as other pupils.

There are lots of reasons why the inclusion of special and regular schools is impracticable, mainly the reluctance of teachers to do unpaid extra work, the unwillingness of special schools to integrate and often the resistance of the parents of healthy children. Although, the new Education code declared in 2016 brought integration in education. According to Kateřina Valachová, the Czech Minister of Education, inclusion in education could succeed if the conditions of this program are met. For instance, the conditions are connected with financing and further training for school staff. But it is enough? In practice teachers have only a few days course about the general information and after that they should be ready to teach children with special needs. In the long run, teachers stay alone in front of the class and they try to find the personal approach how to make satisfy not only the school management, but on the top of that, all parents either their children have a special needs or not. I consider this developing program as the praiseworthy pointing out of the flaws in the society it is a step forward but the function of the project is not arranged sufficiently.

The new program brings a lot of questions and mistrust to parents of healthy and unhealthy children but also to teachers. Some parents of the disabled children may be uncertain about the satisfaction of their children´s needs. On the other hand, some parents of healthy children are afraid of how it affects the quality of their children's education and they perceive them as an embarrassment for them. In general, the teachers are an undervalued group that receives a lot of tasks from the state and also from parents and does not receive adequate support for the fulfilment of their duties; their active approach is taken for granted. Their situation may have a negative impact on the willingness to cooperate in programs of social inclusion.

Another myth connected to the social inclusion of the special schools is the possibility of bullying disabled children, which is often wrongly associated with this topic. On the contrary, healthy children tend to have protective tendencies, and the whole situation can be very beneficial for them, they can gain some skills of dealing with different people and learn something about empathy.

Are the children with special needs, the part of our society? Of course, they are. By automatically ranking children to special schools, we show them that they are „the others“ for us, thereby we are automatically distinguished from them and we are discouraging them from the integration into society. The new program of social inclusion could change public opinion and also children´s social lives but it will take lots of time to be accessible for all children with some kind of special needs. Moreover, the program of social inclusion is something new, it has existed just few years and already has some shortcoming. I just hope that the final form will effectively help to improve access to education without any differences for everyone.