EXPERIMENT IN DIVERSITY
Tamar Kikacheishvili
Transitions Online
nguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=321&N rSection=3&NrArticle=20564
May 12 2009
Czeck republic
Georgian educators are keen to more forward with inclusive education,
but questions remain about funding.
TBILISI | Each school day Ina Mangoshvili and her daughter Mari climb
narrow Petriashvili Street to Public School No. 21.
"I like coming here. But sometimes I have lots of homework. My favorite
subject is Georgian literature, but math is really hard, and the
teacher gives me a lot of assignments for the next day," says Mari, 11.
"I have good friends in class but I don’t like the boys there. Often
they call me ‘Mariii’ and ask for my mobile phone," she says.
Mari shares a bench with her best friend at school, Khatia Danelia,
who helps her with math and in getting around. Mari has cerebral
palsy. During a break between classes the third-floor hall fills with
children. Khatia helps Mari walk through the crush.
"Mari is very funny … and loves sports. This year she wanted to
go skiing with me but Mrs. Ina [Mari’s mother] didn’t let her,"
Khatia says.
Mari Mangoshvili (left) and her friend Khatia Danelia in class at
School No. 21, one of 10 schools in Tbilisi selected for a pilot
project on inclusive education. Photo by Tamar Kikacheishvili.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
School No. 21 and nine others in Tbilisi recently completed a two-year
pilot project on inclusive education of children with special needs in
regular public-school classrooms. Almost a third of the project’s more
than $90,000 cost was covered by a grant from the Norwegian government.
In March, the Norwegian ambassador, John Ramberg, signed an agreement
to help implement a new inclusive education program in 10 more
schools across Georgia, targeted at a whole range of "minorities,"
including children with limited mobility or slow development, those
from non-Georgian ethnic groups, and homeless children.
The success of the pilot project helped boost support for a three-year
government strategy and action plan for inclusive education, said
Eka Dgebuadze, a senior specialist at the Ministry of Education and
Science. The plan, approved in October, does not allocate monies from
the ministry budget for inclusive education.
Inclusive education is a new idea in the Caucasus. Armenia began
an inclusive education program in 2005, according to the Armenian
Ministry of Education. In Georgia, education specialists are committed
to delivering a better education to disabled children and others
with special needs, but the means of financing the additional costs
remains unresolved. The Georgian Education Ministry has been opposed
to additional funding for schools that implement inclusive education
projects, arguing that this would single out a certain category of
student, in effect discriminating against them.
The 10 schools selected for the pilot project were outfitted with
resource rooms where pupils can relax, study, watch TV, or just play
with toys. To improve accessibility, outdoor and indoor ramps were
built and new toilets and classroom doors installed.
The project also funded a teacher aide and a psychologist for each
school.
In all, 111 students with different levels of disability took part in
the pilot program. About 200 disabled children are enrolled in public
schools in the Georgian capital. Nationwide, the Education Ministry
says, about 1,000 disabled students study at 13 special schools.
The Education Ministry will continue funding the salaries of teacher
aides and psychologists in the 10 schools. As for other schools, the
ministry argues that many have sufficient resources to fund these
positions. The aides and psychologists are paid the same as other
school teachers, 300 lari, or about $180, a month.
According to Tatia Pachkoria, inclusive education coordinator with
the ministry’s National Curriculum and Assessment Center, informing
the public about special needs education and development of a
national policy were key components of the project. As Georgia gets
ready to adopt the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities, the Education Ministry is drafting new legislation to
strengthen the rights of disabled people in schools and universities,
Dgebuadze said.
The new legislation in accordance with the convention should be
adopted by this autumn and will mark another step toward more inclusive
education, along with the strategy and action plan approved last year,
Dgebuadze said.
FUNDING NOT ASSURED
Irina Lomidze is the inclusive education coordinator at Mari
Mangoshvili’s school in Tbilisi. She says 14 pupils affected by
cerebral palsy and autism are enrolled there and receive individual
care. Like other Georgian public schools, No. 21 is a combined primary
and secondary school.
"The teacher aide spends the most time with them, helping with
whatever they need. Most of these children spend their time in the
resource room, where they play with the toys or paint. Some of them
just relax," Lomidze says.
Some pupils spend most of their school day in the resource room,
where there is always a staff member on duty. Thirty of the school’s
105-member teaching staff were given special training by Norwegian
experts to better equip them to teach classes containing children
with differing levels of physical and mental ability.
Georgian educators are discussing the means of financing inclusive
education. Education Ministry expert Dgebuadze says ministry officials
would like to expand the current financing system for the benefit
of children with disabilities. Under the existing system, public
schools with fewer than 400 students receive a voucher worth 325
laris per student per year to cover teacher salaries and some other
expenses. Larger schools and schools in mountainous regions receive
vouchers worth more money, but there are no additional funds for
students with special needs.
"These children need teacher aides and a psychologist as well. They
also need special equipment. Currently, only the 10 pilot schools
have all the equipment needed for the education of disabled children,"
Dgebuadze says.
But School No. 21’s principal, Mikhail Lomidze (no relation to Irina
Lomidze), believes that extra financing for disabled children would
be discriminatory.
"I think that the issues related to children must be dealt with on
the same level. That’s why schools get the same amount for each child,
no matter whether disabled or healthy," Mikhail Lomidze says. He adds
that it would be best if teacher aides were available to work with
every disabled child.
Irina Lomidze, the school’s inclusive education coordinator,
favors additional spending for children with special needs,
however. She says the school needs at least three teacher aides and
two psychologists. The school has almost 1,400 students but only one
psychologist and one teacher aide.
GRADUAL ACCEPTANCE
The pilot project also uncovered negative reactions among many parents
and even teachers toward children who look or behave differently,
yet it also brought hope to proponents of inclusive education.
When the project began, Irina Lomidze says, "Parents of healthy
children complained about the disabled students being in their
children’s classes, even though there were almost no problems from
the children themselves, and the children accepted each other better
than the parents did."
Some parents said that such mixed classes lowered the overall level of
ability because their children became bored when the teacher repeated
material for pupils with learning disabilities.
"Our society still needs preparation for accepting these children
as members of society. This was really a problem, especially when we
were beginning the program," Dgebuadze says.
Attitudes toward children with special needs seem to improve with
experience, according to research carried out by the nonprofit
International Institute for Education Policy, Planning, and Management
with the National Curriculum and Assessment Center. Opinions
on inclusive classes in Georgian schools are very different in the
schools that took part in the pilot project compared to those without
inclusive methods, the research found.
The survey was conducted in the autumn of 2006, when the pilot project
began, and a report was published in 2007.
Surveying schools where students have no experience of inclusive
education, the researchers found that many students believed the
presence of a disabled person in class could lead to conflicts between
students with differing attitudes toward disability.
A very different picture emerged in the schools that took part in the
pilot project. Here, the report says, "students did not perceive any
influence on the class from the presence of a disabled child. This
does not mean that nothing changed in those classes. But the main
influence on these students was positive personality changes. They
felt that through contact with disabled classmates they were growing
more tolerant," the researchers concluded.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress