Social:World Conference on Special Needs in Education

Short description: Conference on Special Needs in Education

The World Conference on Special Needs in Education was a conference held in Salamanca (Spain) in 1994 where more than 300 participants representing 92 governments and 25 international organizations adopted a Framework for Action that called on schools to welcome all children, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other characteristics. This is arguably the most significant international document that has ever appeared in the field of special education.

The principles elaborated in Salamanca have set the foundation for understanding the importance of inclusion in education. Since then, the concept of inclusion has broadened, emphasizing the need to reach all learners, on the assumption that every learner matters equally and has the right to receive relevant, quality, equitable and effective educational opportunities.

This is reinforced by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically Goal 4 (SDG4), which calls upon education systems ‘to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’.

The Conference was co-organized by the organization UNESCO and the Ministry of Education and Science of Spain.

International policy context

In considering the impact of Salamanca, it is essential to see it in relation to other international developments. In particular, since 1990, the United Nations’ Education for All movement has worked to make quality basic education available to all learners. The World Declaration on Education for All sets out an overall vision, which is about being proactive in identifying the barriers some learners encounter in attempting to access educational opportunities. It also involves the identification of resources available at national and community level to overcome those barriers.

Ten years later, this vision was reaffirmed by the World Education Forum meeting in Dakar, 2000, held to review the progress made in the previous decade. The Forum led to a greater emphasis on inclusion. It declared that Education for All must take particular account of the needs of the poor and the disadvantaged, including working children, remote rural dwellers and nomads, and ethnic and linguistic minorities, children and young people affected by conflict, HIV and AIDS, hunger and poor health, and those with special learning needs.

The participants in the Forum endorsed the Dakar Framework for Action, which confirmed their commitment to achieving Education for All by the year 2015, and identified six key measurable education goals which aimed to meet the learning needs of all children, youth and adults. In addition, the Framework reaffirmed UNESCO's role as the lead organization with the overall responsibility of coordinating other agencies and organizations to achieve education for all.

The Salamanca Statement

Although the immediate focus of the Salamanca conference was on what was termed special needs education, its conclusion was that: “Special needs education – an issue of equal concern to countries of the North and of the South – cannot advance in isolation. It has to form part of an overall educational strategy and, indeed, of new social and economic policies. It calls for major reform of the ordinary school."

The aim is to reform education systems. It is argued that this can only happen if mainstream schools become capable of educating all children in their local communities. The Salamanca Statement concluded that: “Regular schools with [an] inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all; moreover, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system."

This suggests that moves towards inclusive schools can be justified on a number of grounds:

• An educational justification: the requirement for schools to educate all children together means that they have to develop ways of teaching that respond to individual differences and that therefore benefit all children;
• A social justification: inclusive schools are intended to change attitudes to difference by educating all children together, and form the basis for a just and non-discriminatory society; and
• An economic justification: it is likely to be less costly to establish and maintain schools which educate all children together than to set up a complex system of different types of school specializing in particular groups of children.

The publication of the Salamanca Statement proposed a major change in policy direction, not least for the education of students with disabilities. At that time such students were not considered by national education departments in some countries. Rather, they were the responsibility of health or social care ministries in a way that implied that these young people did not have their right to education fulfilled. There are parts of the world where this is still the case.

Supporting educative developments

During the period prior to and after the Salamanca conference, a series of resources were produced to support inclusive developments. Whilst these resources were developed some twenty years ago, much of their content remains relevant to current concerns, particularly those described below.

Special needs in the classroom

The resource pack of teacher development materials was developed on behalf of UNESCO through a programme of action research carried out by a resource team in eight countries. In the period following the Salamanca conference the materials were expanded for use throughout the world, with initiatives in over 80 countries. The approaches recommended in the resource pack are consistent with the Salamanca orientation. Specifically, they involve a move away from an integration perspective, focused on the placement of individual students, towards an inclusive approach, which is concerned with school reform. Within the project, this shift came about as a result of a realization that the ways in which earlier attempts were made to develop integrated arrangements had been largely unsuccessful. These attempts to integrate students seen as having special needs into mainstream schools were often based on practices derived from earlier experiences in special provision. Many of these approaches are simply not feasible in primary and secondary schools, particularly in economically poorer countries with their massive classes and scarce resources. Consequently, the resource pack concentrates on finding ways of making lessons relevant to all class members, whatever their characteristics or backgrounds.

Open File on inclusive education

The Open File materials were developed by UNESCO to support policy-makers, managers and administrators in promoting inclusive education within their countries. They offer a means whereby decision-makers in different countries can draw on international experience in guiding their own countries’ systems towards inclusion. The users of the Open File are likely to be staff with leadership responsibilities working in national education ministries, local government, district services and resource centers, voluntary organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and so on. The Open File is not primarily concerned with national policy-making, or with classroom practice, although both of these are essential considerations in the development of inclusive education.

Index for inclusion

Developed originally for use in England by the Centre for Studies in Inclusive Education, this school self-review instrument has been translated into more than forty languages and used in countries in the Global South and North. It enables schools to draw on the knowledge and views of staff, students, parents/carers, and community representatives about barriers to learning and participation that exist within the existing ‘cultures, policies and practices’ of schools to identify priorities for change. In connecting inclusion with the detail of policy and practice, the Index encourages those who use it to build up their own view of inclusion, related to their experience and values, as they work out what policies and practices they wish to promote or discourage.

Regional initiatives

The years following Salamanca led to a series of regional initiatives in relation to the theme of inclusion. Information sharing regarding these developments was facilitated by the Enabling Education Network (EENET), established in 1997 with technical and financial support from a group of concerned international non-governmental organizations and UNESCO.

In Latin America, for example, although accurate data is still scarce, the effect of international commitments and national legislations in favour of inclusion in education for all students led to slow but positive progress. In Africa, too, there was evidence of positive developments, although concern has been expressed about the problems of importing ideas about inclusive education from the Global North in ways that fail to take account of indigenous forms of education.

In Asia, India, after becoming a signatory to the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education, saw a significant push towards increased enrolment in schools, and children with disabilities have featured prominently in government policy documents. Significant developments also occurred in the countries of the Pacific region, where inclusive education has been identified as a regional priority by all member nations. And in Europe, an extensive range of initiatives have been introduced through the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education.

See also

• Special education
• Inclusion (education)
• Right to education
• Universal access to education
• Inclusive education in Latin America

Sources

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