Main Routes
Students with handicaps can take different routes, just like anyone else. It is the curriculum that decides which route is to be taken. A student with handicap can take any route and get the assistance he/she needs as long as he/she passes the exams at the end of the road. In more vocational routes there is "job-training" in most of the programmes. Some are more successful than others.
One of the routes available for students with handicaps is a route where the curriculum guidelines are mostly suitable for students with serious learning difficulties (severe and average intellectual disability from birth or caused by accidents or illness).
Curriculum guidelines are organised in four-year studies. Job training appears in the extended study in a more decisive way than before and job training is now more integrative part of education.
The above-mentioned routes are all part of the education system.
Other providers of job training are sheltered workshops (job training places) and workplaces. The young people there are being taught certain aspects of work processes in order to be able to work in sheltered work places or to participate in the open labour market. Municipalities or agencies are responsible for ensuring this process, since they are also responsible for the labour market as a whole, on the regional levels.
The Employment/ Unemployment Situation for Disabled People in Iceland
- No official quota system exists for employment of disabled people.
- No employment figures can be provided, but unemployment rate seems to be low. It is worth mentioning that e.g., in Parks and Environment Department of Reykjavik Municipality it is easier for young people with mental handicaps to get (summer) jobs, than it is for youngsters without handicaps.
- It can also be mentioned that there is a long tradition for what is called a work-school in the country. In the work-school youngsters between the ages of 13-16 get a job with the municipality during the summer for 6-8 weeks. Youngsters work mostly in parks and open spaces; many youngsters with handicaps get a job there as well as youngsters without handicaps. Many young people do get work with the municipality after they finish school. The main reason for this work-school is that the school year in Iceland is short, summer holidays are from 31st May until 1st September.
- Unskilled mentally disabled people work mainly in sheltered workshops.
- There is specialised staff taking care of disabled persons' affairs in official employment offices.
- Special social institutions working according to the "Act on the Affairs of the Handicapped" are involved in transition to work as well as other matters concerning handicapped people.
- There is an ongoing project in Reykjavik, aiming at finding work for handicapped people in the open market and giving each of them individually defined help to fulfil their jobs.