incluD-ed delegation meets with OECD and UNESCO in Paris
Tue, 23/06/2015
On Monday, 8 June 2015, the incluD-ed network met with representatives of the OECD and UNESCO at their respective headquarters in Paris. The meetings to both renowned international organizations have been organized as study visits following the positive and enriching experiences from the field visits held in May 2014 in Helsinki the day before the 5th incluD-ed annual network meeting.
The incluD-ed delegation has been composed by three of the four incluD-ed founding members – notably Fundación ONCE, APF and Kynnys – as well as Javier Guemes from the ONCE and Simona Giarratano as representative of the European Disability Forum (EDF).
At the meetings with representatives of OECD and UNESCO, incluD-ed has been presented as a valuable experience to promote inclusive education at European as well as international level. As a "multi-stakeholder" initiative and "multi-instrument" incluD-ed seeks to promote inclusive education in Europe through various means which are key to promote equal opportunities for people with disabilities and their social and labor inclusion. Furthermore, the delegation highlighted the need for further improvement in the area of policies, programs and practices to ensure a real development of inclusive education systems, with the very different realities in the different countries.
In this line, the existence of significant challenges has been highlighted including the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the implementation of the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and EU 2020 Strategy.
Maria Tussy, Head of European Programmes of the ONCE Foundation, as leader of the incluD-ed network, said that " the European Network of Inclusive Education and Disability has shown once again how the European Social Fund is a key element that generates a multiplier effect in creating a more inclusive and cohesive Europe, with training and employment as pillars". Carla Bonino, incluD-ed coordinator in that Department said that "inclusive education is key to meeting the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, which cannot ignore the over 80 million people with disabilities in Europe."
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Meeting with the OECD, major international economic organisation committed to democracy
Yuri Belfali, Head of OECD’s Early Childhood and Schools Division, together with her team, warmly welcomed the incluD-ed delegation on Monday morning to discuss several aspects of OECD’s current and future work and how they include the issues of disability and inclusive education into their activities.
The OECD has currently no thematic project on disability or inclusive education, but the disability dimension is included in different OECD programmes, mainly by the concept of Special Educational Needs (SEN) students. They also explained the network delegation their activities in regards to: PISA, Education at a Glance, Early Childhood Education and Care, School Resources Review and PIAAC.
Jenny Bradshaw, Senior Analyst working on PISA said that it is not that simple to extend the inclusion of the disability dimension in PISA. At the moment, the PISA overall exclusion rate lies at max. 95% and exclusion can also be at school level e.g. for schools in remote areas. Nevertheless, the OECD has the intention to better include the disability dimension in the next PISA cycle. For the PISA cycle 2015, they have launched a pilot PISA project testing adapted questions with assistive technology. They are open to share results by the end of the year. After this they would be open to exchange ideas on improving the disability dimension in the next PISA cycle starting in 2018. For their entire work an international definition of disability would be helpful.
Additionally, the OECD is working on the notion of “Skills on Diversity in a Global Context” and is currently analyzing data of PISA 2009+2012 on SEN to give some policy recommendations.
Rowena Phair, Project Leader at the Early Childhood Education and Care division underlined the importance of the first years of education (0-5 years) for the childrens’ school success. Transition phases are also crucial. At the moment, Rowena is working with the Agency on a project on inclusive pre-primary education. She mentioned two important data gaps to be closed: 1. Process quality of education (interaction with teachers) and 2. Monitoring of quality and staffing (perceptions, beliefs, practices). The OECD plans to develop a staff survey to start working on these data gaps.
Eric Charbonnier, Analyst at OECD Education at a Glance said during the meeting that inclusive and special needs education belong to his working framework and data on special needs are included in the reports. Compared to PISA, Education at Glance seems an easier framework to further include disability. He underlined as well that it is crucial to work on an international definition of disability and disability policy as well as on inclusive and special education at different education levels.
Paul Santiago, Senior Analyst and Olivier Sieweke, Intern, presented the School Resources Review, a study regarding funding of SEN, HR management (especially teacher training), infrastructures and basic policies to improve equity in education and in schools currently in 15 OECD countries. incluD-ed found the study especially interesting since a special link to the study carried out by the incluD-ed network on “Quality Factors on Inclusive Education” could be seen. The OECD showed equally interest in receiving the study questionnaire as well as the study results and to see which aspects could be integrated in OECD work.
William Thorn, Senior Analyst in the Skills Beyond School OECD Division working on PIAAC told the delegation that they are already in the process of redevelopment of a new PIAAC cycle (data collection 2021/2022) and that it would be interesting to look in detail to incluD-ed’s study questionnaire.
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Meeting with the UNESCO, opening up an opportunity for future collaboration
At the UNESCO, the incluD-ed delegation has been welcomed by Florence Migeon, Programme Specialist in the Section of Learning and Teachers and Focal Point for Inclusive Education as well as by Keith Holmes (Programme Specialist, Youth and Literacy Section, expert on technical and vocational training) and Adrien Alain Boucher (Associate Expert in Education, Section of Learning and Teachers).
The UNESCO understands inclusive education as a broad and general concept where disability is included as another aspect of diversity. A child can be included in a school but marginalized and/or excluded by its peers, fees, health issues etc. For UNESCO, inclusion is a process that needs to go hand in hand with equity.
Inclusion and inclusive education have been addressed in UNESCO’s Position Paper on Education Post-2015 so to be included in the EFA Global Monitoring Report on ‘Education post 2015’ as new sustainable development goals (Source: http://en.unesco.org/post2015/). Florence Migeon also underlined the importance to support and monitor the implementation of inclusive education at country level. UNESCOs policy guidelines are therefore currently being updated by Mel Ainscow.
Keith Holmes as well as Alain Boucher underlined that teacher training is key to inclusive education. Furthermore, attitudes in society, school curricula and assessments in schools need to be revised. A quite simple and first step could be changing text books fostering the diversity of the society. Keith Holmes also announced that the UNESCO will develop a resource base including the topics of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and disability.
A collaboration opportunity between the incluD-ed network and the UNESCO has been proposed by Florence Migeon and will be followed up on. She suggested organizing for the UNESCO online platform and knowledge community an online discussion on inclusive education in September/October 2015.
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incluD-ed network DELEGATION:
- Philippe Miet, Association des Paralysés de France (APF) - National Advisor European & International Policy
- Bénédicte Kail, Association des Paralysés de France (APF) - National Advisor Education Policy
- Javier Güemes, ONCE - Technical Director of International Relations
- Maria Tussy, ONCE Foundation - European Programs Head of Unit
- Carla Bonino, ONCE Foundation - Transnational cooperation coordinator at the Department of European Programs
- Aulis Mäkinen, Kynnys ry (The Threshold Association) - Regional Secretary Jyväskylä
- Martine Aitken, P.A.U. Education - incluD-ed Network Secretariat
- Annett Räbel, P.A.U. Education - incluD-ed Network Secretariat
