Inclusive ECCD: - Consultative Group on Early Childhood Care and ...

CASE STUDIES
dren with disabilities. Rather, school improvement
was based on a response to the particular difficulties
of quality and access to basic education faced
by the Lao Education service at that time.
School improvement may be
the result of the introduction of
integrated education, or provide
the opportunity for integrated education
to happen, but whichever
route is taken, school improvement
must take place.—TOWARDS
INCLUSION: SCF(UK)’S EXPERIENCE IN
INTEGRATED EDUCATION 1995
School
Improvement
In 1989, education ministry planners started the
process of improving quality through attending
to teacher education and the curriculum, as well
as continuing to work on the issue of access. The
government sought various partners in these
tasks, including SCF(UK), who helped with the
pre- and in-service teacher training programmes
in both the pre-school and primary sectors. They
introduced more child-centred methods in the
schools, which have now led to the development
of the current integration programme.
The issue of teaching methodology (how to
best promote learning within the schools) grew
through consideration of the curriculum (what to
teach) and how to best prepare teachers for the
job (what should teacher trainees learn and where
can they best learn the skills involved). One report
on the changes taking place in the primary
sector was titled Learning to See, and for those involved
this was certainly the key to the introduction
of new methodology—What is happening in
the classroom? Why do so many children fail?
How can we teach in ways that limit failure and
enhance learning with our limited resources?
The answer was the adoption of more childcentred,
active teaching approaches, the use of
home-made visual aids, greater involvement of
children, better interaction in the classroom, a variety
of activities, planning and recording, ongoing
assessment, and above all a new attitude in
which children’s differences were acknowledged
and teachers took responsibility for the learning
going on in the classroom. It was this process that
highlighted the clear needs of those children who
had failed to learn and to consider the situation of
those children whose parents did not enrol them
at all.
The <strong>Inclusive</strong>
Education Pilot
Project, 1993
The pilot project primary school chosen was one
in which the school improvement process was
well established, where there was felt to be a
committed staff and good leadership and because
the school already had three children with clear
special educational needs enrolled. In-service
training based on the UNESCO Special Needs in the
Classroom pack was given over a period of time to
deepen the understanding of new methods and to
prepare the school and the local community for
the admission of children with special needs.
During the first academic year (1993/94) twelve
children were enrolled, mostly in the lower
grades, and weekend in-service training continued
throughout the year. The following year
there were 17 children, including those who had
already been in school (and failing) and those
whose learning problems were at last being
recognised and acknowledged.
This pilot school phase was an important
learning and experimental period. In the first half
of 1995 the project board deliberated on what
had been learnt and what the next step might be.
It could be seen that:
■ inclusion of children with special needs was
possible in Lao primary schools, provided
that the teaching and learning methods
were active, interactive, and flexible, and
that teachers were supported through inservice
training and ongoing support systems;
■ introducing integration could deepen and
speed the improvement process by highlighting
the difficulties children might encounter
in the classroom and by providing
methodologies for helping many children
when they faced temporary or long term
problems, thus reducing the failure and repetition
rates throughout the school;
■ while the general introduction of improved
teaching methodology was the basis, teachers
also needed to know what kinds of difficulties
children might face and have access
to some methods of approaching these difficulties.
Teachers also needed to have prob-
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