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Inclusion: theory and practice : Towards Inclusion - The Role of Information. Contents
The information-sharing began with five presentations about the practice of IE in Lesotho, Ethiopia, Namibia, Cuba and Romania. The purpose of the presentations was to share experiences of implementing IE in a variety of cultural contexts and, in so doing, stimulate debate about the nature of the EENET and its core functions.
Cuba
Some lessons from Cuba
Sue Stubbs
Sue attended the 2nd Ibero-American Special Education Congress entitled 'Special Education requirements and their challenges for the 21st century', July 1-4 1997, and gave a paper on SCF's Experience on IE. Contrary to her expectations, Sue found the Cuban experience of special and integrated education to be a fascinating case study, one which could so easily be misunderstood and misinterpreted by those outside the system.
"EENET has a role in helping to translate and interpret thinking"
Cuba is a communist state in transition, where the received wisdom of the USA and later of the former Soviet Union is now being questioned. Defectology, for example, is being re-evaluated. Since the revolution Cuba has developed a strong infrastructure with large numbers of trained personnel and genuine multi-sectoral collaboration. Special education teachers are seen as a resource for mainstream as they are more practised at coping with diversity. Their training is holistic. There is no longer any separate training on individual impairments. Special education is seen as promoting integration, which is considered to be broader than schooling. Children are prepared for citizenship, in keeping with the political ideology.
A strong experimental approach to special education has developed with rigorous monitoring and evaluation of those models. In Havana 'reverse integration' is being tried out at a very well resourced special education campus. Special schools are considered to be leaders in quality education and the challenge is how to upgrade the quality of education for all children. UNESCO's Special Needs in the Classroom resource pack is not well-known in Cuba, despite the existence of a UNESCO office in Havana. SCF has a link agency in Cuba which is very keen to become a member of EENET and is willing to translate materials into Spanish and to disseminate them to the Spanish-speaking world.
Inclusion: theory and practice : Towards Inclusion - The Role of Information. Contents
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06/11/1997