Chapter Seven 

Learners with Special Educational Needs

 Background 

There is a growing awareness that there are far too many learners with special needs who should have the opportunity of access into the education and training system. Historically the areas of special needs or specialized education and support services have been considered as appendages or non-essential in the administration of education in South Africa and in other parts of the world. 

Within the context of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training (NCSNET) and the National Committee on Education Support Services (NCESS), special needs in education refers to needs or priorities which the individual person or the system may have. A system that responds to differences (diversity) in the learner population must remove the barriers to learning in order to promote effective learning among all learners. The NCSNET and the NCESS were appointed by the Minister and Department of Education to investigate and make recommendations on all aspects of special needs and support services in education to ensure that the system becomes more responsive to the diverse needs of all learners.[1] The NCSNET/NCESS has intentionally adopted a complete approach, where they have considered all aspects and bands of education. The approach mentioned is grounded on the belief that the main task facing education is one of identifying and addressing the different and diverse needs of the entire learning population and minimizing, removing, and preventing barriers to learning and development, thereby promoting effective learning among all learners in South Africa. 

The Green Paper and subsequent Draft White Paper on Special Education (Draft White Paper 5)[2] outline the concerns that should be tackled. The need to make education and training system accessible to all learners has been included and is advocating Inclusive Education and Training system in all the educational bands or levels, from Early Childhood Development to Higher Education and Training. This means that extra support services have to be in place, in order to enable those learners to cope with the teaching and learning. The views contained in the NCSNET & NCESS Report of 1997 have been captured and taken care of, when this Draft White Paper on Inclusion was being designed. 

The Draft White Paper (paragraph 2.19) stated that government would develop strategies at different levels to address barriers to learning experienced by learners with special needs. This approach is congruent with the learner-centred approach of open learning. It recognizes that developing learners’ strengths and empowering and enabling them to participate actively and critically in learning involves identifying and overcoming the causes of learning difficulties. It recognizes that creating policy will not solve the issue. Successful implementation of the strategies will rely on a substantive understanding of the real experiences and capabilities of our provincial systems and education and training institutions, the setting of achievable policy objectives and priorities over time, and regular reporting on these. Successful policy implementation will also rely on identification of key levers for policy change and innovation within our provincial systems and our education and training institutions. It also recognizes that South Africa does not have the institutional, professional, and fiscal abilities to proceed immediately to abolish special schools and settings and establish an inclusive education and training system. 

Diversity of learner needs is acknowledged, and special efforts to cater for the needs of such learners are to be dealt with within inter-sectoral collaboration. For instance, the Departments of Education, Labour, Welfare, and Health can work together, share resources for the benefit of a learner with special education needs in all sites of learning or educational institutions.

 Key strategies and levers for establishing an inclusive education and training system 

Accordingly, Draft White Paper 5[3] (par 2.22) identifies the following key strategies and levers for establishing an inclusive education and training system:

•      The qualitative improvement of special schools and settings for the learners that they serve and their conversion to resource centres that are integrated into district support teams.

•      The mobilization of the approximately 400,000 disabled children and youth of compulsory school going age who are outside of the school system. This estimate is based on the 5% prevalence predicted by recent October Household Surveys and the number of learners with disabilities currently accommodated within the school system.

•      Within mainstream schooling, the designation and conversion of approximately 500 out of 20,000 primary schools to full service schools, beginning with the 30 school districts that are part of the national district development programme. Similarly, within adult basic, further and higher education, the designation and establishment of full service educational institutions.

•      Within mainstream education, the general orientation and introduction of management, governing bodies and professional staff to the inclusion model, and the targeting of early identification and intervention in the Foundation Phase.

•      The establishment of district support teams to provide a coordinated professional support service that draws on expertise in further and higher education and local communities, targeting special schools and specialized settings, designated full service and other primary schools and educational institutions, beginning with the thirty districts that are part of the national district development programme.

•      The launching of a national advocacy and information programme in support of the inclusion model focusing on the roles, responsibilities and rights of all learning institutions, parents and local communities and highlighting the focal programmes and reporting on their progress.  

 A new framework to tackle learning difficulties and to promote effective learning 

In the Draft White Paper (Chapter 2),[4] the Ministry proposes a framework for change and transformation that will ensure more and better access to the education and training system for those learners who experience the most severe types of learning difficulties, and who are most vulnerable to exclusion. The paper makes it clear that, although the focus is on learners in special schools and settings and those in remedial or special classes in ordinary school settings, the transformation will be of the entire education and training system. This will enable the Ministry to recognize and address the causes and effects of learning difficulties in ordinary classes and lecture halls.[5] 

Transformation and change will focus on the full range of education and training services: national and provincial departments of education, and higher education institutions that have different responsibilities for education and training; educational institutions – special and ordinary education support services, curriculum and assessment, education managers and educators, parents and communities.[6] 

It is envisaged that implementation of the policies outlined in the Draft White Paper 5 will have the following central features (paragraph 1.3):

•      Criteria for the revision of existing policies and legislation for all bands of education and training, and frameworks for governance and organization.

•      A strengthened district-based education support service.

•      The expansion of access and provision for disabled learners, especially those of compulsory school-going age.

•      Support for curriculum development and assessment, institutional development and quality improvement and assurance.

•      A national information, advocacy and mobilization campaign.

•      A resourcing strategy.

The Ministry of Education has committed itself to developing an inclusive system of education and training that accommodates diversity. This inclusive system will be achieved when the current system addresses severe learning difficulties. This will clearly mean that all education and training policies and legislation need to be revised and the ELSEN capabilities of all advisory bodies strengthened. To establish an inclusive education and training system will require creation of barrier-free learning environments and revision of all curriculum, assessment, and quality assurance initiatives. In order to achieve this, it is essential that adequate and appropriate professional development be provided to education managers, educators, and support staff.

 Policy, legislation, governance and organization 

The Department of Education (and its provincial counterparts) will begin working towards the infusion of appropriate management and leadership competencies in all sections of the departments to ensure that they can accommodate the full range of diverse learner needs, and recognize and respond to the causes and effects of learning difficulties. Structures to facilitate this inter-departmental and inter-sectoral collaboration and cooperation will be established at all levels of the system – national, provincial, district, and institutional – to develop an inclusive and community-based approach to recognizing and responding to the causes and effects of learning difficulties. 

District Support Teams will provide a coordinated district support service on an inter-sectoral basis. Institution-based support teams will be established that will be the essential mechanisms for identifying and responding to learning difficulties within the context of the institutions. 

Special schools will be converted to resource centres (par 3.10) that will provide an improved educational service to its target learner population and assist learners who are at risk of exclusion from the mainstream educational system. These institutions will be integrated into the district support teams and provide support in curriculum, assessment and instruction to ordinary public schools, FET institutions and other learning sites.

 Curriculum and institutional development 

The Draft White Paper stresses the importance of developing the capacity of education institutions to recognize diversity within the context of social inclusion. A framework for educational practices consistent with the establishment of an inclusive education and training system will be provided. However, attention will be given to those institutions, classes and programmes that provide education services to learners affected by learning difficulties and exclusion. 

In order to execute the changes needed to increase flexibility of the curriculum to assist a diversity of learner needs (this includes what is required to enable education institutions to become supportive and inclusive):

•      Efforts will be focused particularly on developing inclusive sites of learning where access to most learners is provided, i.e. physically in terms of building and grounds, and educationally in terms of curriculum and support services.

•      Any new curriculum initiatives, at all levels of education and training, will focus on the inclusion of the full range of diverse needs of the learner population.

•      Assistive devices will be made available to learners who cannot gain access to learning because of the lack of the necessary devices.

•      New policies and practices will be reviewed so that assessment practices will address barriers to learning and development. This will ensure that the needs of all learners are acknowledged and addressed.

•      Existing quality assurance mechanisms will facilitate the development of quality education for all learners.

 Application and development of human resources 

In order to develop an inclusive education and training system that will accommodate diversity, a community-based support system that will rely on the support and commitment of all education and training role-players and stakeholders, will be established. Personnel will be trained with the capacity to provide for the development of an inclusive education and training system. NGOs, organizations for the disabled, health professionals, and other members of the community will play an important role in building a new inclusive support system.

 Funding 

There are many inequalities in present funding provision within general, further, and higher education and training in respect of learners with special needs. So all existing policies will be reviewed and improved to address learning difficulties and exclusion from education and training. 

The introduction and implementation of the inclusive programmes is a very complex undertaking and is dependent on a number of factors. It is hoped that the resources and leadership to make this work will be available, and that all learners will benefit. 

A fundamental premise of the NCSNET/NCESS is that developing an inclusive education and training system that is responsive to diversity and addresses barriers to learning and development, will make a substantial contribution to the development of quality education for all in South Africa.

 Goals in establishing the inclusive education and training system 

Long-Term Goal

The long-term goal outlined in the Draft White Paper 5[7] is the development of an inclusive education and training system that will uncover and address barriers to learning, and recognize and accommodate the diverse range of learning needs. 

It is stated that this long-term goal is part of the Department of Education’s programme to build an open, lifelong and high quality education and training system for the 21st Century. 

The inclusive education and training system shall include a range of different institutions, including special schools/resource centres and designated full service and other schools, public adult learning centres and further and higher education institutions and reflects a twenty-year developmental perspective.

Short- to Medium-Term Goals

•      Addressing the weaknesses and deficiencies of the current system

•      Expanding access and provision to those of compulsory school-going age who are not accommodated within the education and training

•      Revising of all policies, legislation and structures that are necessary to facilitate the transformation process.

•      Launching a public awareness and advocacy campaign

•      Developing the appropriate and necessary capacities and competencies at all levels of the system

•      Rationalising and combining of limited resources.

•      Developing mechanisms within the system that are central to increasing access, to accommodating diversity and to addressing barriers to learning.

•      Establishing of district and institution-based support teams

•      Establishing of evaluation and monitoring measures.

 Strategic areas for change 

The following areas are outlined as strategic areas for change:

•     Build capacity in all education departments;

•     Strengthen the capacities of all advisory bodies;

•     Establish district support teams;

•      Audit, improve the quality of and convert special schools to resource centres;

•      Identify, designate and establish full service schools, public adult learning centres;

•      Establish institutional level support teams;

•      Assist in establishing mechanisms at community level for the early identification of severe learning difficulties;

•      Develop the professional capacity of all educators in curriculum development and assessment;

•      Quality assurance and quality improvement;

•      Mobilizing public support; and

•      Developing and pre-testing resourcing instruments of the programmes.  

 Footnotes 

[1] Department of Education (1997). Quality Education for all: Overcoming Barriers to Learning and Development: Report of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training. Pretoria.

[2] Department of Education (2000).  Draft White Paper 5.  Special Education. Building an Inclusive Education and Training System. Pretoria.

[3] Department of Education (2000).  Draft White Paper 5.  Special Education.  Building an Inclusive Education and Training System. Pretoria.

[4] Department of Education (2000).  Draft White Paper 5.  Special Education.  Building an Inclusive Education and Training System. Pretoria.

[5] Department of Education (1999). Consultative Paper No.1 on Special Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System, First Steps. Pretoria.  

[6] Ibid.

[7] Department of Education (2000).  Draft White Paper 5.  Special Education.  Building an Inclusive Education and Training System. Pretoria.