Capacity building refers to the process of developing and strengthening mainstream schools’ capacity to meet all learners’ needs, rather than distributing additional resources for learners with additional support needs. This process involves increasing the knowledge and skills of all education professionals (i.e. leaders, teachers and specialist staff) and enhancing collaborative practices within schools and across local communities. The ultimate aim is to transform teaching and learning and improve learner outcomes.

Co-teaching or team teaching, also known as collaborative teaching, is a teaching practice to address the diversity of learners and needs in the classroom. It takes place when two (or more) educators work together to plan, organise, instruct and make assessments on the same groups of learners, sharing the same classroom.

In a co-teaching setting, the teachers are considered equally responsible and accountable for the classroom. Co-teaching is often implemented with general and special education teachers paired together as part of an initiative to create a more inclusive classroom.

Working together may include: one teach, one observe; one teach, one assist; station teaching, parallel teaching, alternate teaching; team teaching.

(For more information on these, see Understood, no date).

Critical factors are those elements that are crucial in the decision-making process and necessary for an organisation or project to achieve its aim.

For example, in the Changing Role of Specialist Provision in Supporting Inclusive Education activity, the level of school autonomy is a critical factor that directly and significantly affects the way schools use specialist services.

External specialist provision refers to out-of-school resources in the form of external centres and institutions that support individual learners and/or empower schools and teachers.

Some countries call them ‘resource centres for inclusion’, others ‘competence centres’, ‘resource centres’ or ‘reference centres’. This type of resource may be responsible for:

• needs identification and educational planning;
• short-term or part-time support for individual learners;
• provision for training and courses for teachers and other professionals;
• support for parents;
• development and dissemination of materials and methods;
• support for transition between phases of education;
• support in entering the labour market (European Agency, 2019b, p. 24).

(See also ‘Specialist provision’)

Resource allocation mechanisms (financial, human, technical, etc.).

Within an educational context, public funding may come from central, regional or local sources, with variations in transfer of resources between levels and the allocations that schools receive. Degrees of autonomy also vary between system levels.

(See also ‘Education finance’)

Governance refers to how decision making happens in education systems. It refers to the institutions and dynamics through which education systems allocate roles and responsibilities, determine priorities and designs, and carry out education policies and programmes. In today’s increasingly complex social environments, many countries are working to ensure effective planning, implementation and delivery of education policies (OECD, 2019).

Governance mechanisms refer to the structures and processes that are designed to ensure the education system’s accountability, transparency and responsiveness. 

Good governance has been accepted as one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It is also expected to be participatory, accountable, effective and equitable and to promote the rule of law.

Inclusion is both a principle and a process: ‘Inclusion and equity in and through education is the cornerstone of a transformative education agenda […] No education target should be considered met unless met by all’ (World Education Forum, 2015, p. 2).

It can be seen as: ‘A process consisting of actions and practices that embrace diversity and build a sense of belonging, rooted in the belief that every person has value and potential and should be respected’ (UNESCO, 2020a, p. 419).

The term was often associated with disability, but now extends to wider groups as ‘a response to increasingly complex and diverse societies. It treats diversity as an asset which helps prepare individuals for life and active citizenship in increasingly complex, demanding, multi-cultural and integrated societies’ (Soriano, Watkins and Ebersold, 2017, p. 7).

‘An education that promotes mutual respect and value for all persons and builds educational environments in which the approach to learning, the institutional culture and the curriculum reflect the value of diversity’ (UNESCO, 2020a, p. 420).

The Agency views inclusive education as ‘a systemic approach to providing high quality education in mainstream schools that effectively meets the academic and social learning needs of all the learners from the school’s local community’ (European Agency, 2015, p. 2).

Inclusive education supposes a real change at both policy and practice levels regarding education. Learners are placed at the centre of a system that needs to be able to recognise, accept and respond to learner diversity. Inclusive education aims to respond to the principles of efficiency, equality and equity, where diversity is perceived as an asset. Learners also need to be prepared to engage in society, to access meaningful citizenship and to acknowledge the values of human rights, freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination (Soriano, Watkins and Ebersold, 2017, p. 6).

This is generally linked to the placement of learners in mainstream schools. It carries with it an idea that learners need to be educationally and/or socially ‘ready’ for transfer from specialist provision to mainstream schools. The expectation is that learners will adapt to the school, rather than the school changing to accommodate the learners and meet a wider range of diverse needs.

(See also ‘Partial integration’)

Key drivers are those conditions that are necessary to achieve the change/transformation necessary to support inclusive education. Key drivers may also force or highlight the need for change. For example, a school’s organisational flexibility is a key driver for improving the way specialists collaborate with mainstream teachers. A commitment to resources and excellence for all are key drivers for inclusive education.

‘Partial integration’ means that some learners are partially educated in a mainstream class (for subjects mastered through mainstream programmes) and partially educated in a special class (for subjects mastered through intensified teaching or special programmes). Here, the learner belongs to a mainstream class, with the special class offering regular sessions for some form of special programme (European Agency, 2019b, p. 22).

(See also ‘Integration’)
 

‘The practice of managing the way goods are produced or services are provided to make sure they are kept at a high standard’ (Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries).

Quality assurance refers to the ‘policies, procedures and practices designed to achieve, maintain and enhance quality in inclusive education’. It also involves ‘how educational organisations account for their activities, accept responsibility for them and share information on their results openly and transparently’ (European Agency, 2018e, p. 17).

Resource centres are core educational centres and/or institutions dedicated to providing support and consultancy to promote inclusion. A resource centre is a transformed special school, which redefines itself as a dynamic, multi-functional space that brings together both human and material resources. The transformation requires stakeholders from special settings to act as consultants for mainstream settings, providing schools with their knowledge and accumulated experience. It mobilises the knowledge and skills of the school for inclusion, valuing the knowledge and experiences of all (European Agency, 2019b).

Special classes/units refer to some form of partial integration arrangements for some learners with SEN [special educational needs] within mainstream schools. These are often seen as a form of ‘special school’ within the mainstream school, particularly when they are called ‘special units’. Enrolment is often similar to that for special schools. It is evident that, in these cases, special units act as a resource directed mainly to the learners and not the school staff (European Agency, 2019b, p. 22).

(See also ‘Special (pre-) school / unit’)

This covers different types of specialist provision services, specifically:

• in-school provision, which ensures assistance to learners who are in mainstream classrooms, or partially out of mainstream classrooms (special classes, units, programmes, inclusion classes, and parallel support, i.e. one-to-one provision by specialised staff);
• external provision to schools aiming to empower them to act inclusively (resource centres, networks of special schools, networks of mainstream and special schools);
• external provision to schools through individualised support to learners enrolled in mainstream settings (physiotherapists, speech therapists) with the support of education, health or welfare authorities;
• external provision to learners, such as special schools dedicated to learners requiring intensive support, under the responsibility of education, health or welfare authorities (European Agency, 2019b, p. 10).

(See also ‘External specialist provision’)

This refers to policy-makers, education professionals, school leaders, learners/peers, families and the members of the community (European Agency, 2019b).

This refers to ‘variations in the way schools operate within a country’. In implementing inclusive education, ‘there is a need to reduce inequalities between regions (e.g. between urban and rural areas) and to increase consistency among schools, municipalities and regions’ (European Agency, 2019b, p. 37).