Edited by Katherine Tee, Sunday, 3 Oct 2010, 23:19
Kuwait has issues with its accessibility policy, and the ministry knows it. Being sure to make allowances for translation, check out the following extracts from The National report Development of Education in the State of Kuwait, 2004-2008, Sate of Kuwait, Ministry of Education:
"As we are still, in spite of being the twenty first century, facing major challenges in the educational integration of people with disabilities, how can we ask for the educational integration [when] Kuwait is still, [using] special education schools established in the fifties and providing educational services for students with disabilities in an isolated school environment. The establishment of special education schools in that era was due to an [in]ability of students with disabilities to complete their education onlythrough isolating them from their peers to receive regular educational programmes to suit their special needs."
"There are some obstacles that prevent the implementation of integration program in education for students with disabilities, as follows:
......
The opposition of some [parents] of the non-disabled students in regular schools.
Fear and hesitation to take such a decision for fear of the future negative consequences and critism [by] others.
The opposition of teachers in regular classrooms and lack of desire to merge and join the disabled in regular classrooms because of the increase of burden of teaching and teachers' efforts exerted for disabled students."
However, the current Minister of Education (H.E. Mrs Nouriya Subeeh Barrak Al Subeeh) is making an effort to change current policy, and established two experiments to integrate students with SEN:
"Partial Integration: It is the integration of special needs students in special classes with their regular schools provided that the number of students in these classes does not exceed eight students per class.....
Inclusive-Holistic Integration: It is the integration of special needs students in regular classes of students by merging 5 students with special needs with 15 normal students."
To facilitate this, the govt pays KD5000 (GBP10,000) per year to schools for every Kuwaiti child diagnosed with a disability. It works very well in the governement SEN schools. It does not work well in mainstream govt schools, due to the aforesaid parental complaints.
It does not work effectively in the private sector, which is profit driven, and therefore schools choose large class sizes rather than occasional allownces for disabled Kuwaiti students. Keep in mind, non Kuwaitis with disabilities do NOT receive the allowance; and it would be difficult to implement a policy in an international school allowing access for disabled students only if they're Kuwaiti!! Plus it brings the perceived level of the school down. Hence schools who accept these students tend to be specialist SEN schools.
Kuwait Policy
Kuwait has issues with its accessibility policy, and the ministry knows it. Being sure to make allowances for translation, check out the following extracts from The National report Development of Education in the State of Kuwait, 2004-2008, Sate of Kuwait, Ministry of Education:
"As we are still, in spite of being the twenty first century, facing major challenges in the educational integration of people with disabilities, how can we ask for the educational integration [when] Kuwait is still, [using] special education schools established in the fifties and providing educational services for students with disabilities in an isolated school environment. The establishment of special education schools in that era was due to an [
in]ability of students with disabilities to complete their education only through isolating them from their peers to receive regular educational programmes to suit their special needs.""There are some obstacles that prevent the implementation of integration program in education for students with disabilities, as follows:
However, the current Minister of Education (H.E. Mrs Nouriya Subeeh Barrak Al Subeeh) is making an effort to change current policy, and established two experiments to integrate students with SEN:
"Partial Integration: It is the integration of special needs students in special classes with their regular schools provided that the number of students in these classes does not exceed eight students per class.....
Inclusive-Holistic Integration: It is the integration of special needs students in regular classes of students by merging 5 students with special needs with 15 normal students."
To facilitate this, the govt pays KD5000 (GBP10,000) per year to schools for every Kuwaiti child diagnosed with a disability. It works very well in the governement SEN schools. It does not work well in mainstream govt schools, due to the aforesaid parental complaints.
It does not work effectively in the private sector, which is profit driven, and therefore schools choose large class sizes rather than occasional allownces for disabled Kuwaiti students. Keep in mind, non Kuwaitis with disabilities do NOT receive the allowance; and it would be difficult to implement a policy in an international school allowing access for disabled students only if they're Kuwaiti!! Plus it brings the perceived level of the school down. Hence schools who accept these students tend to be specialist SEN schools.