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AGENCY eBULLETIN March 2015
Dear Readers,
Two particularly important events will take place this year, both involving young learners with and without disabilities. In May 2015, the Agency will hold a major dissemination conference on ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning as an official event of the Latvian EU Presidency and in October 2015, the Agency will organise a European Hearing as an official event of the Luxembourg Presidency of the EU.
The conference in May will present a new set of guidelines developed during the past three years for how to create accessible materials for learning. Young people will take part in the event and participants will be able to test the Guidelines in practice.
In October the Agency is organising the ‘Inclusive Education: Take Action!’ European Hearing. The Hearing provides a platform for young people with and without disabilities to express their views on the developments and the challenges they are facing in their education.
This issue of the Agency eBulletin also includes details about our cooperation with Malta in an external audit of the country’s inclusive education system, as well as an update on the Agency’s new project on raising the achievement for all learners.
Materials from the findings of the Organisation of Provision to Support Inclusive Education project are now available on the Agency website, as well as new materials in different formats and languages.
Read more about these developments in the articles below, and find out about events and news in our member countries.
Thank you for following our news on the Agency website.
Cor J.W. Meijer
Director
European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education
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Guidelines for Accessibility
On 27–28 May Riga will host the Dissemination Conference for the ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning (ICT4IAL) project. This event will take place as an official event of Latvia’s EU Presidency, and it will present the project’s main outcome, the ICT4IAL Guidelines.
The ICT4IAL Guidelines have been created as a tool to help practitioners and organisations that provide information for learning to create accessible materials. The document contains a set of easy to follow steps to create accessible materials in text, video and audio formats.
The ICT4IAL project’s is a multi-disciplinary network formed by the Agency with European Schoolnet (EUN), the International Association of Universities (IAU), UNESCO, the DAISY Consortium and the Global Initiative of Inclusive ICTs (G3ICT). Project activities began in 2013 and the Guidelines have been developed together with the partners and with input from nominated experts from the Agency’s and partners’ member countries.
At the conference workshops, participants will have the chance to follow step by step instructions and demonstrations of how to create accessible materials, and how to share these in different formats. In addition, all participants will be able to consult how they can improve the accessibility of their existing materials.
After the conference the Guidelines will be available on a dedicated website as an open source material.
For more information on this project, visit the project web area.
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How are systems of provision organised to meet the needs of learners?
The Organisation of Provision to Support Inclusive Education project (2011–2014) set out to address the question: How are systems of provision organised to meet the needs of learners identified as having disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) in inclusive settings within the compulsory school sector?
Following a review of recent Agency work and relevant literature, Agency countries completed a project questionnaire on how they currently organise and evaluate the provision for learners with disabilities in mainstream schools.
Examples of practice were also provided and the following sites were selected for in-depth study:
- Essunga, Sweden – with a focus on strengthening the capacity of mainstream schools;
- Vienna, Austria – focusing on a collaborative approach to quality management;
- Flensburg, Germany – investigating collaboration and networking to support the needs of learners with disabilities;
- Ljubljana, Slovenia – focusing on developing the role of special schools to provide a resource to support mainstream;
- Valetta, Malta – looking at in-class support and the roles of different personnel in schools/communities.
These sites also hosted thematic seminars between October and December 2013, aiming to explore in more detail the factors arising from the visits that have an influence on the success of inclusive education, taking into account different country contexts. Policy makers and experts, as well as national and local representatives attended the seminars, allowing for relevant issues to be considered at local, national and European levels.
The reports form all the visits and a summary of key issues discussed at the project seminars are available on the project web area.
A final project report draws together evidence from all project activities and, following an analysis of key issues, provides a series of recommendations on child rights and participation, conceptual clarity and coherence and the development of a continuum of support for all learners.
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External Audit Report Launched in Malta
On 4 February the Agency presented the External Audit Report for Malta, commissioned in November 2013 by the Maltese Minister for Education and Employment, Mr Evarist Bartolo.
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From left to right: Mr George Borg, Directorate for Educational Services, Director General and Agency Representative Board member, Ms Amanda Watkins, project leader, Agency Assistant Director, Mr Evarist Bartolo, Minister for Education and Employment, and Mr Cor J.W. Meijer, Agency Director
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The Audit report Education for All: Special Needs and Inclusive Education in Malta assesses the current special needs and inclusive education system in Malta, with particular emphasis on special needs resourcing and effectiveness issues. At the report presentation, Agency Director Mr Cor J.W. Meijer pointed out that Malta already has an inclusive system and this study will help to maximise the resources already available within the system.
The Audit report identifies a number of priority steps that will be necessary to further develop effective policy and practice for inclusive education. This report constitutes the basis for further debate with stakeholders.
For more information on the audit visit the webpage of the Maltese Ministry of Education.
The report is open to consultation until the end of March, when the implementation phase starts. For any questions or comments, contact the Agency representative for Malta.
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Learners' Empowerment and Involvement at the Next Hearing
‘Inclusive Education: Take Action! Luxembourg Recommendations’ is the title of the next Hearing, which will take place in Luxembourg in October 2015 as an official event of the Luxembourg Presidency of the European Union.
The event will give young people from across Europe an opportunity to make their voices heard. The Agency’s member countries will nominate 14-15 year old learners with and without disabilities to represent their peers’ views.
This event will empower and ensure the involvement of these learners in shaping educational policies. The Hearing has a dual aim: sharing the Agency’s findings with the young learners and listening to them, in order to identify progress in the implementation of inclusive education policies from the learners’ perspective since the first Hearing in 2003.
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