Schools told to make room for special needs pupils

In overhaul of policy, Ministry of Education to develop programmes in 110 public schools.

Wedad Sarhan is worried about the isolation that her son, Malik, faces as long as he is out of school.

DUBAI // In a major overhaul of special education policy, the Ministry of Education said yesterday it is to develop special needs programmes in 110 public schools. Private schools will also be required to accept children with mild and moderate disabilities, though they will be permitted to charge higher fees to fund the development of their own special education programmes.

The Government has earmarked Dh10 million (US$2.7m) to test the new guidelines in incorporating children with disabilities in 18 public schools in the next school year. In the next three years, potentially thousands of children will be moved to the 110 mainstream public schools from centres across the country. In the long term, the ministry plans to force private schools to take children with mild disabilities but no timeline has been set.

"This will give you a framework for special education and how it should look like," said Noura al Marri, the director of special education at the Ministry of Education. Ms al Marri was speaking on the sidelines of the launch of a document laying out the "General Rules for the Provision of Special Education Programmes and Services" at public and private schools. It defines disabilities that should be catered for in schools, and identifies assessment methods for pupils with special needs and how they can be enrolled as well as how to measure their progress.

It also lists which staff members need to be hired to cater for pupils with disabilities, their qualifications and how many pupils they ought to be assigned, the responsibilities of local schools and education zones, the rights of parents and special education procedures for private schools. Schools will be required to modify the learning environment to accommodate children with disabilities and cater to their needs, and principals will have to promote inclusion in their institutions. Ms al Marri said the new policies would be phased in at private schools after her department offered them free teacher training. Implementation plans for the general rules would be ready by next year.

Private schools will be allowed to charge parents 50 per cent more than the price for a child without disabilities to absorb the costs of offering special care. Although the 2006 Disability Act says schools are not allowed to turn children away, most private schools, the only option for almost all expatriate parents, do not have special education programmes. Those that do tend to restrict entry to children with mild to moderate disabilities.

Emirati parents can send their children to special centres. Last autumn, the Federal Government began integrating children with disabilities into regular schools. But for many families with disabled children there are no services, due to a severe shortage of space in private centres in Abu Dhabi. Hundreds of disabled children are out of school. "We put these rules because they cannot be only for local people," said Ms al Marri. "There are a lot of non-locals who have no place to go to."

According to Ms al Marri, there are about 400 children with disabilities fully integrated in UAE schools. Many others attend special needs classes. Regular schools are not an option because most do not accept children with moderate or severe disabilities. Schools in the capital, which fall under the jurisdiction of the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec), will not be affected by the new plan. Adec is finalising its own policies.

The new policy received mixed reactions. "The policy is a start and it is certainly very good news for inclusion in the UAE," said Dr Eman Gaad, the director of disability services at the Community Development Authority in Dubai. Dr Manal, an Emirati paediatrician and mother of an 11-year-old boy with Down's syndrome agreed that it was a step in the right direction. "They need some support, so give them some support," she said.

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