DEVELOPMENT OF INTEGRATION/INCLUSION

From the middle of the 19th century till the mid 20th century, Cyprus was a colony of Great Britain. Consequently, the educational system for special schools used in Britain was applied to that of Cyprus. The British educational legislation of 1870 suggested the establishment of special classes for handicapped and mentally retarded children, as well as for children with behavioral problems. A number of additional legislation acts were introduced since the beginning of the 20th century, but the most important one was the introduction, in 1944, of compulsory education for handicapped children and children with special needs, as well as for children who had spent a long time under treatment in hospitals.

However, it was only in 1970 when it was agreed that every single child is entitled of attending school.  A number of special schools and institutions were then established to meet the new educational needs. As a result there was a split of children between mainstream and special schools.

The outcome of the most recent educational theories against any type of segregation of children, which advocated that every child has its special needs, was the Warnock Report in 1978. Amongst other things this report suggested the abolition of any type of segregation, the use of the term “children with special educational needs”, and their integration in mainstream schools.

The need to ‘tidy up matters’ in special education led to the introduction of the 47/1979 Special Education Law in Cyprus. The 47/1979 Special Education Law’s most important provision was that the government was taking full responsibility for the education of children with special needs, between the ages of 5 and 18. This Law gave the government the authority to spend public money on special schools. According to this Law the children with special needs were categorized as: moderately mentally handicapped, slow learners, emotionally disturbed and physically handicapped.

According to the 47/1979 Special Education Law the education of children with special needs was provided in special schools or in special classes in mainstream schools.

The third step was the integration movement; the Ministry of Education made a very serious attempt, during 1990’s, to align its policy with the modern educational trends, especially those referring to the inclusion of children with special needs, into normal schools. Therefore there was provision for children with severe needs, supported by extra educational help, offered by special staff working in ordinary schools. In other cases, children were placed in special units, attached to kindergartens and primary schools with part-time attendance in the ordinary class program.

The implementation and expansion of the inclusion concept that was rapidly applied was naturally creating a lot of problems of a technical, practical and social nature. The main problem was the inability of the normal schools to meet the various needs of all their pupils, by introducing multi-speed teaching methods and by securing quality education for all.

Great efforts were made towards this goal, but the problems that children were facing in education in mainstream schools were very complicated and varied and were related to lack of appropriate educational programs, means, supporting services, administrative arrangements, inability to apply individual educational programs and the over weighted curriculum. All these factors above caused great difficulties in meeting the special needs of children.

By the new millennium, a balance has emerged between mainstream placement and specialist schools. The educational placement based upon the unique needs and abilities of an individual child was formalised with the passing of the new special educational law in 1999.

The whole philosophical trend in Cyprus, which led to the implementation of the new Law of 1999, is that children with special needs have the right to training as any other child and should be provided with all the opportunities for an equivalent training, guidance and rehabilitation so as to improve their abilities to the maximum.  The State is responsible for guarding the rights of children with special needs and is responsible to place those children in the united body of training.

The 113(I)/1999 Special Education Law gave a statutory basis for the provision of special education based upon the individual needs of the child. Among other provisions, the law introduced, as one of the main responsibilities of the State, to support the integration of children with special educational needs in the mainstream education by any means.
With the implementation of the 1999 law the education authorities aim to make special education an integral part of the education system whilst providing the maximum level of flexibility to best serve the individual needs of children with special needs. Whilst supporting actively the philosophy of integration and inclusion of children with special needs into mainstream education it recognises that not all the highly specialised needs of all these children can be met within the mainstream classroom. The development of the special units ensures that only the most demanding and specialised needs cases are referred to special schools.
An educational research enquiry was set up, by the Minister, to the University of Cyprus jointly with the Pedagogical Institute, in order to search and find out possible problems children with special needs are facing in their schools and also possible problems faced in the implementation of the Special Education Law in both Primary and Secondary Education and to make suggestions for improvement.