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UNRWA schools following trial programme of
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incorporation of special needs children
By: Mona Swaid
"Special needs" is a term that has recently appeared in circulation in our society, in specific circles to replace the words 'handicapped' or 'disabled', which describes those who are burdened with mental or physical defects. Its meaning highlights the need for awareness and recognition of the individual differences present amongst all the members of society. But what of those whose differences are apparent to others, causing them to be marginalized due to society denying them the right to be different? What about those who are have been left on the sidelines of society?
The project of incorporating special needs children into the education system originated from a group striving for the treatment of this problem- a treatment that has previously been negligent towards this veiled section of society. The project began in five schools in 2002, and is a shared project between the education minister, the Kareem Rida Sa'eed Association, the Gowth Association for British children, the Gowth Association for Swedish children, as well as UNESCO and UNICEF. The project has assumed responsibility to provide necessities for children with special needs, and to adapt a school building for them ( i.e. special toilets, ramps, lights etc…) to make it suitable for their needs. In addition it is training a team of teachers and directors for the schools in this project, to make them aware of integration and its different methods. They will also compose a committee of experts to test the students educationally and medically to determine suitable paths of integration. The test project will last up to 2 years, and the ministries and other participants are evaluating the project, which is currently on hold , to study it and to focus on its most important results.
I will not say 'no' to any student with special needs.
This is from one of the 5 schools which have implemented the project; Kawiykat school in Hamah, which follows UNRWA. The educational director of UNWRA, Mr. Mahmoud Badran, says “we have received the decision of integrating those with special needs in the educational system from the minister of education, Mahmoud Al Sayyed, we have forwarded it on to our schools and this decision was immediatly first by all schools in the country. However, the following project was confined to these five schools as there were no properly trained people available, and the people were not adopting their roles as serious ones”. After this the agency received support from UNESCO and was able to adapt a number of schools affiliated to it, and persisted in concentration upon schools distant from the city centre. They enrolled an ensemble of teachers and directors in a training workshop that lasted for four days, concentrating on awareness of people with special needs, different styles of working with them, and other subjects relating to these matters. The work continued with the support from UNESCO for a period of one year, and after that the educational administration affiliated with UNRWA followed on working with this project, to all its abilities, and the number of schools that have implemented the integration project has now reached 23, in Damascus, Homs, Hamah and Aleppo.
Highlighting the importance of this project, Mr. Mahmoud Badran says " Our mission requires adapting all possible ways to incorporate special needs students in the system, so that they may obtain their natural right to education, as they too are citezens of this country. We must help them to become effective in this country and not dependant upon it, and we will not say 'no' to any student with special needs.” On the details of the integration plan implemented in some schools, the guidance and counseling supervisor of the UNWRA schools in Syria, Mrs. Wafa' Arab, says:" Students with special needs have existed in our schools from the beginning, but this project provides them with a place able to encompass them and their needs." She adds:" we have chosen the elementary stages specifically ( the first and second years of class) as a beginning, and we have created a special committee for examining students to determine the suitable methods of integration, and to define the level of their abilities and possibilities. This is to put in place an individual plan for all students, based on the level of their ability.” They have also completed training a group of supervisors in the first form to help the teachers there.
The integration scheme takes ten minutes to designate each student to the suitable level of study, and monitors them throughout their studies, just as it does with the rest of the students, in order to help them in comprehension of their studies. The results of the students are measured in relation to what has been accomplished in their own individual plan.
But does this special time for integrated students affect the rest of the students in the class? Mr. Badran says: “Our class is not considered a modal class, and the number of students in it can reach up to fifty, which is a burden for the teachers themselves, and this in turn affects the students in one way or another.”
Mrs. Arab sees that it is necessary to reduce the number of students in the classes which follow the integration program, in order to guarantee its application in a more serious manner, and also to avoid the possibility of any side-effects affecting the remainder of the students.
‘Ayn Mahil school:a model.
‘Ayn Mahil school is adherent to UNRWA, and is present in the Khan Al Sheikh region. It is one of the schools which has implemented the integration plan, and has modernisd and adapted itself to make it suitable for the demands of students with special needs. For three years the school had received groups of students with disabilities ranging from the simple to the more serious (e.g. movement, hearing, intellectual). Mr. Syria Salman, the director of the school, says : “ we have accepted the conditions which the process of integration must apply; there will be no disadvantaged student and they will all be able to depend upon themselves” The director has directed his attention to the fact that there are some overlookings in the conditions with they are forced to accept in the school. “ in order to be compliant with the rules and not to be negligent” and promises lack of distancing from and disability-except that of the ordinary” “ and that especially for the region in which our school is in, as the nearest health centre to us is about 28 km away, in addition to to the fact that there are economic conditions of the inhabitants in this region worthy of consideration.
Desire is the foundation of success
The teacher Tufahat Hussain who followed the special training programme of integration confirmed the importance of existence of teachers who are interested and willing to engage with these students “ the teacher who has no desire to deal with these students will not achieve anyting”. Despite this there are a number of teachers who didn’t originally harmonise with the plan, as Mrs. Arab says: “ the extent of responsibilities weighing on the shoulders of the teachers in our schools lowers their motivation for the plan”. Nevertheless, whoever posseses a desire to engage in issues such as these is on the first step towards achievement”. From here the teacher Tufahat endeavours towards developing her faculties and abilities by means of seeking new methods through publications which she is supplied with, instructing counselling and guidance, or through other recourses. She says “frankly there is not a sufficient role to qualify teachers to work with these pupils, and I hope that this training, and the supplementation of a group of teachers in their qualification of dealing with special needs pupils will be consolidated.” On this topic the director of the school added “ in our school there is only one teacher who has followed the training, and she is responsible for implementing the individual plan; as for the rest of the teachers their training comes from inside the school, because the integrated pupils are distributed in the classes.”
Despite the the specilisation of five classes in the week for pupils of integration, and the teachers undertaking projects providing special activities for these pupils, this matter is inadequate. As Tufahat says “ in addition to my role as teacher for the first from, I devote a week to monitoring integrated pupils of the five forms. However, this time is not sufficient to follow up all students in a perfect manner, especially as the number of such students is large.”
If the need for teachers specially trained in integration to follow and honour the implementation of the individual plan for all students appears a joke, one must realise that the materials and division of duties revolves difficultly without this need at the moment. Mr. Bardan says “ the problem is that teachers not qualified to this work are exhausted, but we have no resistance to sitting down the teachers with the special needs pupils before the end of class time or after it, and our ambitions are to open up specialised people for pupils slow at learning, and we are near to achieving this”
Changes in the prevailing opinion
“There are friends who will come to school, they have special classes, and we will organise a support group for them” with this introduction Tufahat prepares the pupils of her school to accept their peers with special needs, to break the stereotypical image which some of the pupils have been presented with. She says “ in the beginning the pupils would stare at the new arrivals, they would discover their particularities, observe their movements, but after a period of intermingling with them they also assumed part of the responsibility of helping them with their integration.
In addition to preparing pupils for this acceptance, which is very important, she arranges for them a number of results guaranteeing the success of the integration process and distinguishing it- preventing it from being buried before coming to fruitition. There is an issue of changing the prevailing opinion in society concerning those with special needs, both in the family levels which they belong to, or in the level of society as a whole, which doesn’t posses, even now, any good methods to treat their needs and deal with them. Mr Badran says “ our society still considers ‘handicap’ shameful, families hide it from the public eye,so they will not be looked at with an insulting glare, or with provoking behaviour, and our fundamental mission is to change this concept.”
This issue was the first obstacle which the project came across, yet Mrs Fatima, mother of Arwa, is not scared to send her daughter to the school “ I was scared of exposing her to insults, not being used to the new situation, especially as she does not know anyone except her family” The worry of the mother for her daughter was excused before trying this process, especially as many of the families of ‘normal’ people object to the presence of special needs children with their own, especially in one place. In front of this situation the teacher Tufaha found that there is no way to convince the society to accept these pupils except in appealing to the human aspect, and spreads awareness by educational publications handed out in the parent-teachers association meetings to convince the families of the necessity to send their children to school. This dissolves the fears of families of normal children, who in turn will cooperate with the school and guide their own children in dealing with their special-needs peers.
And PTA still hold regular meetings in the schools, in order to, according to director Suleman , “exchange notes, in order to achieve a higher level of work in dealing with these students, because it is necessary to deal with them in a special way and make the child feel comfortable in the school, and to create a feeling of love in this place.”
Translating integration in reality
Arwa, Raja’ and Rawan are three integrated students in ‘Ayn Mahil school . The undertakers of this project, like the parents of the students , focus on the noticeable developments that have happened in the cases of these three students, as well as for others. There is a movement towards social integration, and the study course is going well according to the individual mental situation of each student.”
The isolationist behaviour which was controlling Raja’ before being integrated into the course has disappeared, and a change of behaviour has taken its place. Her mother, Mrs. Lamis, says “Raja’ acquired many good behavioural patterns; she has become more socially involved with other children she has better health, and she has stopped bed- wetting.” Raja suffers from an underdeveloped brain, yet she has proved her ability to memorise. Her writing level is still slowly developing, according to the school evaluations. Her mother says the reason for the slow progress is that they did not provide Raja with an education in the home.
As for Rawan, she doesn’t suffer from any mental or motor afflictions, but she is in need of sign language. The weakness in her hearing affects her speech, so she faced difficulties integrating with her companions in the first weeks of school. However, this was quickly overcome after the supervising teacher of the class used signs to communicate with her. Tufahat says “ our integration plan can accept many different levels of affliction because of the specialities of the area which our school is established in. We have situations that need special treatment.”
Rawan monitors, even now, the lips of the teacher and some of her movements to appreciate the lesson, which she transcribes to her book- an amazing skill. She will surely, after this level, need someone specialised who can speak the language which is the best way to communicate with her.
What comes after for students of integration?
Arwa’s has a new lease of life since attending school. The girl who said few words before attending school has begun telling stories in her home about her classmates- and the facial symptoms of her downs syndromes did not have to disappear to make this friendship possible. She follows smoothly the school system, just as do the rest of the pupils. Arwa is now in the third class, and only needs time to learn the alphabet and some care to belong to her new daily map, that of the school.
Arwa comes back to sit at her desk, whose place she knows exactly, she sits beside her friend, she moves her lips into a smile directed at her teacher. She will leave this teacher soon, after she finishes the first from, so that she can pass onto a higher level. She may pass even this level if she continues to get the care she has had until now. The moving of special needs students to schools not adapted to receive them is seen as a loss of all the work that they have done, and that has been done with them. It may cause a regression to the level they were originally at. This is what Tufahat fears may happen to her students. According to Mr Badran “ we will not give up on students who are integrated after the first level, we will continue with them and we will work to bring in teachers who have practice with integration. They will be present in every school, and we will guarantee the needs of the students as much as our financial capacities allow, although financial limitations are one of our biggest hindrances in this.
Legal questions
Integration of special needs pupils into organised education was supposed to include all the countrys schools and started with the project “ Al-Ra’id” in the five schools which follow it. The project has been put on hold in order to study its results, but is still continued in all the schools belonging to UNRWA. Even if all the schools are not implementing this plan now, maybe some will begin this year, under the programme “ School is a friend of childhood”. This programme is done with help from UNESCO, and one of its characteristics is the welcoming of students with special needs. Schools using this programme will follow a common program of work based on the integration of these students. Mrs. Arab says the development of this test has much potential, and we are studying its possibilities now.
The question which will always be present is this: Does the project still have ability to face difficulties, from financial ones to questions of training, and is individual effort enough to make these difficulties decrease? Will we see one day an actual generalisation and continuing of this project in all schools of the country ? Or will the generalisation take an unknown amount of time in our government circles? And will our schools be truly constructed providing every thing to help these children f ace tomorrow, or are we still far from this possibility?
The project of integration has given new opportunities whose lives have hindered their development. It has become more than a program for study purposes, more than merely a test in developed countries. It has become a new way of life that may give a different future for these children- hope has become more than its meaning, it has become its instinct, and hope is first and last the tune to which these children will now walk to. |
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