Joint EU/CoE Project “Regional Support for Inclusive Education”

What is Inclusive Education? The child’s right to participate and the school’s duty to accept the child no matter what their background. Welcomes and celebrates diversity arising from gender, nationality, race, language, social background, level of educational achievement, disability, etc.

What the Schools say? A primary school principal: “Working with inclusion, we become aware how much goodness there is inside us, when we help those children that otherwise wouldn’t be able to learn and through this we share with them the joy of knowledge. “

What the Schools say? A democracy teacher at a primary school: “An inclusive school is a school where all children have equal rights, where everyone is equally involved in learning and where everyone participates equally.”

What the Pupils say? A blind student: “I feel really good in school. I made so many friends during past three years, and we are inseparable outside the school, not only during the classes. They help me with everything I need. Our school has great teachers, who know how to communicate and it is so easy to understand them and they help me in learning”. The blind student’s class-mate: “He taught me to stand up for myself throughout life and to realize that the problems which may seem huge to us are actually tiny, compared to the real-life obstacles.”

What the Project aims? The project objectives are in line with the Council of Europe’s priorities in the education and social inclusion fields – to break down barriers for all vulnerable groups in the education sector. The project promotes the concept of inclusive education as a reform principle that respects and caters for diversity amongst all learners.

The project focuses in five specific areas: Support mechanisms and resources for pilot inclusive schools; Raising awareness of benefits of inclusive education; Enhancing capacities of policy makers for designing and implementing inclusive education policies; Improving the teacher competences and practices for inclusive education; Making progress on the removal of concrete barriers for vulnerable groups through stronger partnership

Inclusive Pilot Schools Project activities focus on 49 pilot schools (7 per beneficiary: 3 primary, 2 general secondary and 2 vocational secondary), selected through an open call for expression of interest.

Inclusive Pilot Schools The experiences gained from the Pilot schools will provide policy makers with firm suggestions on how to scale up identified effective practices. This will enable them to cater for increased social diversity and more inclusive societies – for the benefit of all.

Inclusive School Net a mixture of schools with different levels of inclusive education policies was selected including rural/urban; ethnic, linguistic and religious; social and economic backgrounds; experience and geographical diversities.

Regional approach While focusing on pilot schools, the project is at the same time be conducted at a regional level, thereby accentuating the role of the education and training in the promotion of social inclusion, tolerance, intercultural dialogue and non discrimination in South East Europe as a whole.

Joint EU/CoE Project “Regional Support for Inclusive Education” The international kick-off conference “Embracing Diversity through Education”, Tirana, 6-7 November 2013 will bring together some 150 education policy makers and teachers Further information can be found on the Project website

Synergies with CDPPE The project builds upon achievements that are already taking place and goes a step further in full co-operation with all partners in the region. While the project has dedicated Steering Board – composed of representatives from relevant ministries– advice from the CDPPE is welcomed.

Questions for discussion Are there any initiatives in the area of inclusive education in the region – or elsewhere in Europe – that the Council of Europe and the Project team should be aware of? Are there possibilities for partnership, for instance region to region? What policy issues arising from experience of Serbia and regional project are particularly relevant to other parts of Europe? What advice can CDPPE delegates and observers give on the basis of experience from their own countries and organizations?