Dubai: Special needs schooling sector professionals cite a lack of qualified staff as a major problem, as well as referring to limited options for pupils with disabilities.
This has resulted in a significant number of such pupils experiencing the feeling of being turned down by a school.
Although a Federal law issued in 2006 mandates all academic institutes to facilitate and accommodate pupils with special needs, there still are many schools - specifically in the private sector - who deny the rights of children with disabilities to study at their schools, as they are not qualified to accommodate them.
An article in the law states, "The Ministry of Education as well as the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research shall be committed to taking the necessary measures, in collaboration with the concerned parties, to provide educational diagnosis, academic curriculum and teaching tools and technologies..."
Official process
"It's a challenge for us because we are restructuring the entire department," Noura Al Merri, Director of the Special Education Department, Ministry of Education, said. "Children are shifting from the Ministry of Social Affairs to the Education Ministry. We would like to do this gradually. Actually, we have children coming from centres. We tried to get them included last year but of course there is an official process for this, which takes some time."
This year, as reiterated in previous years, will focus on the organisation of a huge awareness campaign for the inclusion of pupils with special needs.
Principles in the past were able to say 'no I won't take that child, my teachers don't know how to work with them'.
Deborah Wolf, Adviser to the Special Education Department at the Ministry of Education, explained: "They could deny a child's education with his/her classmates for all these reasons. However, this law stipulates that they have the right to education. It's not been really activated or explained to everyone what it means for them."
There needs to be changes across the schools in the UAE and this should be part of the licensing criteria with every school, she continued. The department has managed to integrate more than 40 pupils with special needs into public schools last year.
Awareness and early intervention are much needed, as many special needs children are missing out on this vital stage in their childhood, which hinders them from progressing and adds challenges and expenses for schools.
"We have a lot of children who come to us directly from home at the age of eight and nine," Al Merri said. "Parents keep them at home because they are under the impression that they will be of no use at school. In just three months I had more than four cases and this is a lot in such a short period. You can imagine how many cases there were over the years."
Intervention stage
Expressing her experience as an educationalist in the US, Wolf said that children are normally identified at birth and must immediately be provided with help and support.
"In the States many children, primarily at the age of five, can go to a regular primary school and can be in a regular classroom, because they went through the intervention stage," said Wolf. "Early intervention keeps children many times from having to receive services later on."
Here lies the gap in the challenges of integrating people with special needs, as the connecting point from the minute a child is born until the time the child is ready to go to school is missing. More awareness and co-ordination is needed, she explained.
There is a significant shortage of specialised special needs teachers for different disabilities, with a strong need for speech therapists. However a committee will be established at the Ministry to address the issues of specials needs children, along with drawing plans to implement proposed strategies.
"The committees will include many parties with us from ministries and across the emirates," Al Merri said. "This committee will have many decisions regarding the education of students with special needs, and will discuss many issues including private and public schools. The main education committee will be activated this semester."
According to Wolf, their big goal for this year is to have each school with "a child study team", which includes a special needs teacher, a principal, social worker and a classroom teacher. As for the inclusion process in private schools, Al Merri said, "We have authorities to our [public] schools... we will discuss many issues with our private education department [at the Ministry]."
Do you think there should be a more planned process to get children with special needs accepted by regular schools? How can these obstacles be overcome?
By Siham Al Najami, Staff Reporter