Caution

Experts highlight risk of degrading quality of education for children with learning challenges By Sheria Brathwaite Education officials in Barbados are being advised not to blindly follow the international trend to make learning fully inclusive as they go about reforming the education system, warning that if not properly implemented, it could disadvantage students with special needs. The caution has come from special educational needs consultant Philippa Gordon-Gould and educational psychologist Garry Hornby who said their analysis of the extensive research done in several countries, had found that approach had failed in many instances. They pleaded with the Government not to “degrade” the quality of education required by children with learning challenges. “We conclude that after many years of unsuccessful attempts to establish an idealistic vision of full inclusion in education systems, in different parts of the world, the full inclusion movement has come to a final crossroads. There’s now sufficient evidence that it is not working, it is detrimental to the education not only of kids with special needs but of other children who are performing worse,” said Hornby. “Children with special needs make up 20 per cent of the school population and there’s a wide range of special needs. You can’t expect a mainstream teacher with very little training to effectively provide a good education for those kids. So to continue to promote this failed agenda will inevitably diminish effective education provision for young people with and without special needs. So we suggest the best way forward is integrating aspects of inclusive education and special ed.” So firm are Hornby and Gordon-Gould about the negative effects this approach can have on the education system if not appropriately implemented, that they have authored a book to highlight the major challenges of fully inclusive education and provide guidelines to ensure inclusion is effectively implemented in a fair, relevant and modern education system. Speaking at the launch of the book, Inclusive Education at the Crossroads: Exploring Special Needs Provision in Global Contexts, on Wednesday at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Gordon-Gould explained the potential pitfalls of a fully inclusive movement which started by way of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006. “In so many ways it’s fantastic and it’s absolutely what we want for the protection of the rights of people with disabilities, but there was some fine print that emerged that was not always appreciated in terms of how complete that expectation was . . . . In Article 24, there was a general comment that was issued to state that in actual fact, it was contravening the human rights of children if special schools and special units weren’t closed and all mainstream schools took in children to their mainstream classes, irrespective of the level and degree of disability, and this is where we had the concern. “The principle of inclusion is absolutely what we wanted to promote, it was something we worked hard to develop strategies for, but what we didn’t want was to see that being degraded, the overall effect of the education of children in those classes not being degraded because of the expectation that so many children with so many difficulties were the responsibility, invariably, of one teacher,” she said. Although details of the planned education reform are not yet available to the public, Hornby said that based on what was going on internationally and the statements made by officials locally, it was fair to say that Barbados was headed down the fully-inclusive education path. Noting that the New Brunswick model was the main approach being taken by countries all over the world to introduce fully inclusive education, the education experts stressed that it had some fundamental flaws. They said scores of the countries that implemented it found it significantly challenging to ensure that students with learning issues and special needs had an effective and successful education. Hornby said that while several research papers had indicated that this model was successful, a critical analysis of that body of work found major discrepancies between what the research was promoting, how the model was implemented, and how effective it was. Speaking specifically to the experience of Norway, he said: “The studies that have been so influential are really not clear in the methodology to be able to make the statements they are making…. As you know these days, with all the fake news that is around, you are told by the media or by some sources that this is the case and if you take it all for granted without analysing it, then you are going to go off on the wrong track; and this is what Norway has done. This has implications for Barbados. We shouldn’t really set off on one track or the other unless we really review the research evidence really thoroughly to look at which is more effective.” Gordon-Gould noted that the model was also adopted in England, which led to the development of multi-academy schools that were having similar issues. She said the United States was also having serious problems with the model as it relates to that country’s charter school system. Hornby noted that integration was done in 2017 when the students of the now defunct Alma Parris Memorial School were transferred to St George Secondary School and he suggested a similar approach for remodelling the education system. “When looking at the situation with Alma Parris, those kids were integrated into St George Secondary and appropriate programmes have been provided for them – vocational and social – and based on what I heard from my contacts in the Ministry of Education, it’s actually going quite well . . . . These are kids that can do well, that can go off into their community with jobs and live reasonably independent lives if they get the right education,” he said. sheriabrathwaite@barbadostoday.bb]]>