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MODERN CONDITIONS TO ENSURE LIFELONG EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
N. P. Epova
This article deals with the creation of conditions of affordable and high quality education for children with disabilities. Particular attention is drawn to the need for competent design of the adapted basic educational programs and solving problems of the development of psycho-pedagogical competences of a teacher working with children at different levels of their development.
Key words: disabilities, teacher's professional standards, accessible environment, federal state educational standards, continuous education.
Development of the educational system of the Russian Federation is characterized by statutory regulation, program-methodological support, and protection of the right to an education for children with disabilities. Legal documents include: the Federal Law “On Education in the Russian Federation”; the Accessible Environment State Program for 2011-2015; The Our New School National Educational Initiative; federal state educational standards for general education and for students with mental disabilities; teachers’ professional standards (Order of the Ministry of Labor of Russia of 10.18.2013); "A comprehensive program to improve the professional skills of teachers of general educational institutions" (of May 28, 2014). The ratification of "Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities" in 2012 is an indicator of the readiness of the Russian Federation to create conditions aimed at compliance with the international standards of economic, social, legal and other rights of the disabled population. Under the Convention, it is stated that - participants shall take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities have equal access to the physical environment (buildings and structures), transport, information and communication, as well as other facilities and services open or provided for the public.
The Accessible Environment program for 2011-2015 provides for the implementation of a set of activities to ensure unhindered access to the facilities and services in the priority areas of life for people with disabilities and other people with limited mobility, as well as improvement of the conditions and procedures for the provision of services in the field of medical and social expertise and rehabilitation for the purpose of integration of persons with disabilities into society. The program provides for the creation of conditions to ensure that children with disabilities have equal access to high quality education within the general education program, and other educational institutions that realize the educational programs of general education, taking into account the opinion of psychological, medical and pedagogical commissions. By 2016, it is planned that the number of regional and municipal educational institutions (kindergartens and schools) that meet the relevant requirements to ensure conditions for free access for the disabled, will be increased to up to 10 thousand units (20 percent of the projected total number of regional and municipal educational institutions). One of the necessary conditions to implement the above-mentioned goal includes the creation
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within standard educational institutions, of the universal barrier-free environment, making it possible to ensure the full integration of children with disabilities, and to implement inclusive education. The Federal Law "On Education in the Russian Federation" secured important positions in the creation of conditions of teaching and education of students with disabilities, and contains the following definitions: "a student with disabilities", "inclusive education", "special educational needs", "adapted educational program", and "educational content and conditions of organization of training and education of students with disabilities”.
The Federal State Educational Standards adopted in the Russia (hereinafter - “FSES”) for all levels of education, starting with pre-school level, are designed to provide access to high quality education for all categories of students, including children with disabilities and children who fall under the category of “invalid” under Russian law. The new generation of standards is focused on the pedagogy of dignity and cooperation, and is aimed at ensuring continuous variable developmental education. To implement FSES, basic educational programs are developed in an educational organization, which should have a section entitled "correctional work program", in the event that there are children with disabilities in the educational organization. There are recommendations for the development of this section for each level of education, containing a set of targets and objectives, including the task of organizing a system of comprehensive psychological, medical and social support for students with disabilities. This system should include a mechanism of interaction, providing for a common target and single strategic direction of work, considering variable-activity-based tactics of teachers, specialists in the field of correctional and special pedagogy, special psychology, medical employees of the educational institutions, other educational institutions and organizations of the society, which is implemented in the unity of class, out-of-class and extra-curricular activities.
The main mechanisms to achieve maximum accessibility and individualization of education for different categories of students are: design of the educational process in each educational organization at all levels of education and design of individual educational routes (adapted educational programs) for students and pupils with special educational needs. In this regard, there is a need to create basic organizational and pedagogical conditions to implement the customized educational programs, including regulatory and program-methodical support of the educational process; introduction of modern technologies, methods, techniques, forms of training; organization of interaction of all participants of the educational process; creation of social partnerships. This is another condition for ensuring the continuity of education for children in this category.
The approved teacher professional standard for the first time established the new aspects of activity of a modern teacher within a diversified environment: (a) with gifted children; (b) with children for whom the Russian language is not their native tongue; (c) with pupils of general schools with developmental problems; (d) with pupils who exhibit socially abnormal and deviant behavior. This involves the mastering by a teacher of the much needed psycho-pedagogical competencies and job functions that, according to the developers of the professional standards, will make it possible to “teach all children without exception, regardless of their aptitudes, abilities, characteristics of development, and disabilities”. Two functions
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are pointed out as general labor functions of a teacher: (1) educational activities on the design and implementation of the educational process; (2) educational activities on the design and implementation of basic education programs. As we can see, the focus is made on such labor functions of a teacher as development activities, which corresponds to the ideology of FSES that educational outcomes should be directly related to the direction of the personal development of all students. Every teacher should answer the question: "What I know and can do, and what has yet to be mastered?" The determination of professional deficits of one’s own activities, and the search for conditions to eliminate them, is an urgent task of a modern educator, as well as the entire educational infrastructure (systems of professional training and additional professional training). The possession of a professional directive to render assistance to any child, regardless of his/her actual learning opportunities, particularities of behavior, mental and physical health, becomes an essential condition to provide for the continuous accessible and high quality education of children with disabilities. The adopted comprehensive program of improvement of the professional level of teachers is also focused on the mastering by teachers of modern educational technologies and methods of training and education, knowledge, abilities and skills in order to ensure the inclusive education of persons with disabilities.
Thus, there is a systematic set of legal documents aimed at ensuring the continuity of education for children with disabilities in the Russian educational system, which established the organizational, managerial and program-methodical parameters of the work of participants in the educational process.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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