In March, the Agency member countries met to discuss the initial outcomes of an exciting new activity that the Agency has developed and tested with a pilot group of member countries. These Country Policy Review and Analysis (CPRA) activities are a new approach to analysing inclusive education policies.
The country reactions were very positive, so the country representatives will meet again in May to decide how to make CPRA an on-going activity within the Agency’s Multi-Annual Work Programme 2014–2020.
This new type of policy analysis activity was developed due to increasing requests for the Agency to provide consultancy, audits and other forms of input to countries and various European and international organisations. Clearly, there is a growing demand for feedback on progress in the development of more inclusive education systems. This is, of course, amplified by the rising number of countries that have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (2006), and by the EU Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) targets, which place the development of inclusive education (and inclusive societies) high on the agenda.
The new CPRA activities consider individual countries’ policy situations in light of findings and recommendations from a whole range of Agency thematic projects, which collectively provide a lifespan perspective on inclusive education. The analysis model considers the EU education targets and provides country-specific information that individual countries can use to assess, monitor and further develop coherent national policies to achieve the goals they have set for themselves.
The Agency is the only European-level organisation capable of conducting such an evidence-based analysis of countries’ policies for inclusive education and identifying countries’ strong points and areas for development in current policy.
I am sure that identifying areas of policy advancement, as well as areas for policy intervention, will have clear benefits for national and European-level decision-makers. For the Agency, it represents a new, more collaborative way of working for and with our member countries. It is also a new means of using the information collected from the countries and presenting it back to them, acting as a mirror on their inclusive education policies.
I look forward to keeping you posted on further developments in this area!