Seminar: Integration and Inclusion – Experiences from the European Schools and European Countries
5/18/2015
Within the framework of the Czech Presidency of the Board of Governors of the European Schools the CSI organized a professional seminar with the aim to debate the topic of inclusion, integration and education of children and pupils with special educational needs, with a focus on ethnicity and social, cultural or territorial specifics which need to be considered.
Over 60 participants were present at the seminar. They represented schools and school facilities, professional school associations, non-profit organizations, academic sector, Trade Union of Workers in Education. Also the representatives of public administration such as the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, the Czech School Inspectorate, the Office of Public Defender of Rights, Office of the Government of the Czech Republic and Chamber of Deputies, Parliament of the Czech Republic.
After the welcome of the Chief School Inspector, Tomáš Zatloukal, the seminar´s participants were introduced to the work of the European Schools with the insight into support provided to pupils with special educational needs. The first presentation on that topic was given by the Czech inspector for nursery and primary cycles of the European Schools Dana Musilová. After her talk the international guests presented their papers. Karin Nilsson, inspector for the secondary cycle of the European Schools talked about experience with education of pupils with special educational needs in Sweden, inspector for nursery and primary cycles of the European Schools Helder Lopo Guerreiro was talking about the experience from Portugal and the inspector for nursery, primary and secondary cycle of the European Schools Tuulamarja Huisman has informed the audience about Finnish approaches. The first part of the seminar was put to an end by an expert on topic of inclusion, integration and equity in the educational system Jana Straková who works at the Institute for the Research and Development of Education of the Charles University.
In the second and final part of the seminar participants were debating with the Czech and international experts about several aspects of support provided to pupils with special educational needs and about the possibility of implementation of the international experience into the Czech educational practice.
The seminar was translated into English and Czech. Distributed documents in the language of the origin are available further in the text.