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General information
In 2005 two major laws concerning the country's educational system were passed in France.
The first, the law for equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled persons, was passed on February 11, 2005, thus reforming general policy law 534 of June 30, 1975, a law aimed at benefiting disabled persons. Its objective is above all to give a new dimension to the obligation of national solidarity. Based on general principles of nondiscrimination, this law is structured around three key principles:
- Guarantee to disabled persons free choice of their life plan through compensation for the consequences of their disability and a sufficient living income making possible a dignified autonomous life
- Allow true participation by disabled persons in social life through the organization of society, on the basis of the principle of accessibility for all, whether it be accessibility to education, jobs, transportation, buildings, or culture and entertainment
- Place disabled persons at the core of the systems concerning them by replacing an administrative approach by a service approach. For this purpose, a center for disabled persons in each département (the French geographical administrative unit, France being divided into 100 départements) is established. These centers constitute a single contact and information point for disabled persons.
This law specifies its beneficiaries. Thus, for the first time, the persons covered by the provisions of the law are indicated on the basis of a definition of the disability. Lastly, this law thoroughly changes the institutional structure for disabled persons.
In this law, moreover, article L. 723-1 explicitly refers to the change in status of the National Center of Studies and Education for Children with Special Needs, Centre National d'Etudes et de Formation pour l'Enfance Inadaptée (Cnefei) : "Initial vocational training and ongoing education of persons participating in the task of educational integration and adaptation of disabled children and adolescents indicated in Title V and Book III are entrusted to a national public institution with an administrative character placed under the authority of the Ministry in charge of higher education and the Ministry in charge of education.
This institution is administered by a board and headed by a director appointed by decree of the above-mentioned Ministries. The board includes representatives of the State, qualified personalities, representatives of public institutions of higher learning, and regional authorities as well as elected representatives of the personnel and users. It is assisted by a scientific and educational council. A decree defines the prerogatives, mechanisms of organization and functioning, and composition of the board of this institution".
The second law, the general policy and program law for the future of Education, was passed by the National Assembly on March 24, 2005, thus updating the general policy law of 1989. Its main objectives are to improve education in terms of quality and justice.
Publications
The Cnefei also publishes a review, La Nouvelle Revue de l'AIS, and a certain number of books, tools (see the presentation of the Trousse GéoTracés in EuroNews 13), software packages (Agrege, Eleusis, EtextB, Génex, Symgraph, etc ), films, documents adapted for visually disabled persons.
Among the latest publications are:
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Special educational needs: basic European and international texts
This publication offers the main European and international framework texts, a bibliography, introductory articles, comments and summaries of policies developed since 1990 at the European and international level in the field of nondiscrimination, equal opportunity, Education for all. The classification of the texts was prepared by the Department of Partnerships and International Relations (Nel Saumont), and the bibliography by the Resource Centre (Marie-France Dailliat).
Madame Georgia Henningsen, head of Coordination for Equal Opportunity in the Education and Culture Division of the European Commission wrote the foreword and Mr. Patrick Gérard, Director of Education in the school system, wrote the preface.
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In the collection « Histoires de vie. ». The fascicle Vivre avec l'autisme (living with autism) is part of a series presenting life stories of families with a child in a situation of disability. In this case we read the story of a family with a five-year old autistic son who attends nursery school. A videocassette was also prepared by the Cnefei. Interviews were conducted with all members of this family of six children showing the impact of this disability on the life of the family. An analysis of these interviews made by the researcher is included in the second part of this fascicle. These life stories were prepared in the framework of an observatory set up as part of the Equal Conciliation Famille Handicap project in order to review the situation of these families and evaluate their difficulties and needs. A transversal analysis was made on the basis of 15 life stories affected by eight disabilities: mental retardation, psychic illness, the Down syndrome, autism, blindness-deafness, motor disability, and epilepsy. This analysis will be included in each one of the fascicles. To be published in the same collection: Living with autism (3 fascicles) Living with the Down syndrome (1 fascicle) Living with epilepsy (1 fascicle) Living with a motor disability (1 fascicle) Living with a mental retardation (3 fascicles) Living with deafness (1 fascicle) Living with blindness-deafness (1 fascicle) Living with a psychic illness (3 fascicles) Transversal analysis of Life Stories (1 fascicle) All these publications are presented in detail in « Ressources/production » of the Cnefei website ( www.cnefei.fr).
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page last updated on: June 10, 2005 |
