Powering special education

At the conference to summarize the 2023-2024 school year and deploy tasks for the 2024-2025 school year for special education recently organized by the Department of Education and Training of Ho Chi Minh City, statistics showed that the number of disabled students studying integrated in public educational institutions is increasing.

In the 2023-2024 school year, the city will have 907 kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools, and high schools accepting integrated students, with a total of 10,441 students. Of which, the number of primary schools implementing inclusive education tasks accounts for the largest proportion - with 482 schools and 4,911 students.

If divided by disability type, out of a total of 10,441 integrated students, students with intellectual disabilities account for the largest proportion - with 7,996 students (76.58%). Besides intellectual disabilities, integrated students also have other types of disabilities in vision, hearing, speech, movement, nerves, mental health, etc. Integrated students are diverse, creating more pressure on the management staff and teachers in public schools because they are not properly trained in special education.

According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Thien Hoang, Deputy Head of the Primary Education Department (Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training), due to insufficient staff, schools have to assign staff to hold concurrent positions, shouldering the workload, which more or less affects work efficiency. In order to attract more teachers, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Education and Training proposed adding the job of caring for and educating people with disabilities at educational institutions to the list of "List of arduous and hazardous occupations and jobs" to increase preferential regimes and allowances for teachers. In the 2024-2025 school year, the education sector will continue to improve the quality of training and foster skills for teachers teaching integrated students in general schools, while increasing regular professional meetings to promptly grasp the teaching situation of units, thereby providing close guidance and timely and practical solutions.

However, efforts from the education sector alone are not enough, but also require the cooperation of the whole society, including strengthening socialization policies, promoting the role of social organizations and unions to increase investment resources for education. In particular, close coordination between families and schools is important in creating a positive educational environment, helping students with disabilities have the opportunity to rise up in life, improve their self-service ability and become useful people for the community.

MINH TRANG

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/tiep-suc-cho-giao-duc-dac-biet-post760937.html