The Larissa Primary and Secondary Education Interventions for special education

Regarding the meeting of the IOE/OLME with the leadership of the Ministry of Education regarding special education, the Interventions of Primary and Secondary Education of Larisa speak in a joint statement. As they point out:

A meeting was held on Monday 15.4 of the Boards of the IOE and OLME with the Secretary General of the Ministry I. Katsaros and the head of Special Education and Training I. Bousdounis, in view of the bill for the EA that the Ministry of Education informed us that it is preparing.

From the beginning they stated that there is still no decision and no specific timetable but that the basic logic of any changes made in the policy of inclusion and full integration. It was obvious that the meeting was for “the eyes of the world”. It is no coincidence that Deputy Minister Z. Makri literally entered for two minutes in the middle of the discussion and left without even announcing it. It should be noted that only the first meeting has taken place with Minister Pierrakakis when he took office, in July 2023. The discussion was quite general and mainly the representatives of the leadership of the Ministry described the framework in which the EA structures operate to date and what in their opinion it should change.

Some key points raised in the discussion on:

1. KEDASY: They presented as a problem the many approvals of parallel supports. They sought to target endorsements by stating that many times schools are looking for “pedophiles”. They also pointed out that the number of requests is very large, resulting in a huge wait. They focused too much on the fact that each KEDASY works differently, with the result that in some places too much parallel support is given and in others not. It was clear that they are concerned with finding a way to centrally guide the reduction of approvals. In this direction they intend to create tight common protocols and tools to centrally control the flow of approvals and lead to their reduction, a goal they hope to achieve by creating an electronic platform for applications to have centralized supervision and surveillance. They noted that there is a long wait because the permanent staff is few (there are 1023 organic and only 490 covered by permanent staff, while another 1100 are covered by substitutes) and generally said that they want to strengthen them with permanent staff. In general, they pointed out quite strongly that there is a long wait due to the lack of permanent staff and that they are making legislative changes to the criteria required for someone to go to KEDASY and blamed the delays on the fact that the deputies need two months to be trained and that time is wasted etc. our persistent questions if this assessment leads to recruitments, the leadership of the Ministry of Education and Culture ruled out any such possibility for this year and made it clear that for the 2024-25 school year there will be no recruitment of permanent staff at KEDASY.

2. Parallel support: In the above context of targeting the number of KEDASY opinions, they tried to cover the reduction of the staff that they seek in parallel support, with arguments that the context should also be changed there “since now they do not function helpfully for the child which do not help him to become independent and learn to function alone in the space, so they should function properly in order to offer children based on the principles of inclusive education”. The leadership of the Ministry of Education proposes the logic of “porridge” in special education by merging the structures and naturally reducing the staff. A special education teacher will take care of all the children who need special education. and will do everything while we know very well that the parallel support concerns the specific needs of students who only in this way can

to have equal access to education. Of course, no mention was made of the non-existence of a stable and permanent offer of parallel support as a result of which the students change teachers every year, the delay in recruitment every year, the unacceptable regime of sharing the hours between 2-3 students and the absence of support of students across the school curriculum.

3. TE: They underlined that there are many schools that have not applied for the establishment of TE, mainly in secondary and kindergartens. The Director of special education again put the blame on the kindergarten teachers who “do not apply because they think that this way they will gather there children with issues and avoid it”, keeping silent about the fact that the waiting time for an opinion from KEDASY in the majority of cases is well over one or the two years of the child’s schooling, while often the teacher e.a. slow to hire or not hired at all.

There was a clear targeting of the teachers of the Integration Departments and a repetition of the story that “In the Integration Departments, the provisions of the legislation for their mode of operation are not respected, such as cooperation with classroom teachers and with parallel supports, etc. and thus the children are led to disengagement, since they are isolated from the department and is not included”. It is clear that changes are underway in the direction of limiting the operation of integration departments as independent departments and the intervention of the integration teacher mainly within the existing school classes.

For our part, we emphasized that this particular view, which is not based on any research data, is the ideology of all neoliberal European governments in recent years, based on the short-sighted and unscientific view that any supporting structure of special education “stigmatizes” while promoting the idea of the so-called “full inclusion” that costs nothing. The aim is to deforest the supporting structures of special education which are considered costly, to withdraw the state from the obligation to provide education to all children and to leave students with disabilities or special educational needs in a school environment where they will not be included since no change is foreseen in the structures, form and content, as requested by the disabled, parental and educational movement. These policies in essence lead to the exclusion and marginalization of children because their main objective is to reduce the funds spent and they do not take any measures to prepare children to be able to participate equally in the class and school team. The constant reference to early intervention from the kindergarten, while no measures are taken to strengthen them, is done only for propaganda reasons and to cover up.

4. Special schools: it has become clear that not only will they not be strengthened, but in the name of inclusion and full inclusion they will be left to decline and discredit without funds, logistical infrastructure and the necessary permanent staff. In fact, they accepted that there will be a problem with NSRF funds because the EU refuses to give NSRF for structures such as special schools when its main policy is to close them. They recognized that in Greece there are no building facilities in the general schools that would facilitate them to proceed with the abolition of the special schools and their inclusion in the general schools at least for the next 20 years, but they made it clear that there is no way to build new special schools or give funds to strengthen the existing ones. They treat the special school as a structure that should be closed but it can’t be done and that’s why they let them “languish” without a single euro from the public state funds for the special schools and in fact for 20 years.

It is clear that special education and training, with its structures, are targeted by the government and the Ministry of Education, as they were in all previous years by the ND/SYRIZA/PASOK governments. Special education is seen as a burden that EU and OECD policies want to take off the backs of the state, to privatize aspects of it as it is a source of significant profitability for capital and to commercialize.

The embattled education movement stands against these pursuits, fighting to nullify any attempt at reactionary restructuring in special education. Our struggles are guided by the modern needs of our students and not by profit and the market!