The Ministry of Education and Culture is positioned with "particular hostility, relentless resistance, intolerant and misogynistic attitudes" towards children with disabilities, the Cyprus Confederation of Disabled People's Organisations (KYSOA) said in a statement.
"The insult to their dignity and exclusion at all levels, which it defiantly refuses to acknowledge and name as such, seems to be not only the result, but also the purpose of the Ministry's decisions. Undisguisedly parents and educators are being pressured by all means to acquiesce in the segregation, exclusion and disenfranchisement. To consent to remove children from the mainstream classroom, to accept the arrogant and completely unsupported position that their children deserve less, that they cannot have a future of inclusion and that to be removed from children their own age is for their own good."
"These thoroughly undemocratic policies," the statement added, "refer to the particularly cruel treatment of unsuspecting and innocent children with disabilities who attend or wish to attend mainstream classes within the community and the denigration of KYSOA and parents' organizations that disagree with these misguided policies and practices."
"Given the government's publicly expressed policy of implementing assessment procedures from the very first grade of primary school in order to "bag" these children in special schools and special units, as if they were children born without rights, they and their parents are strictly forbidden to decide on the determination of their future," it added.
Regarding the recent case of the 8-year-old student who wishes to attend and be educated in her classroom with all the necessary support, it appears, says the CYSOA, "that this is not a recent, isolated decision to segregate her, but that there is a history of violations against her, which has been tolerated by inaction and silence."
The student, it is noted, "already carries traumatic experiences (from behavioral harassment to violence) from her brief attendance in a special unit, where the Ministry and its officials who handled the case at the relevant time exerted unbearable pressure, even through third parties, including politicians and others, to deprive her of rights: This was a persistent attempt on the part of the Ministry to retaliate against the mother, through her daughter, for her actions to stop the violations in the pre-primary classroom."
"It can by no means be ruled out that the then threats against the mother when she complained about what her daughter experienced in the unit are now being implemented with the persistent decision to forcibly confine the 8-year-old in a room with four other children, where no lessons are taught, no curriculum is implemented and time is divided among the children while most of the time, these children are simply "engaged" in activities, it added.
The mother, the CYSOA continues, "reiterates that the 'exclusion' decision was taken without the so-called Central Committee having before it any evidence in this regard (evaluation report) or other information from the experts who know the student, sealing the predetermined and arbitrary decision to exclude the student by separating her from her friends and children in the neighbourhood".
Similar attitudes and pressures, it is reported, are seen in dozens of other cases of children of various ages across Cyprus.
KYSOA refers to two students who "for the 12th consecutive week have been out of class and no one from the Ministry of Education seems to be really interested in supporting the family and the children themselves to continue in education."
"Despite the initial recommendation of the experts to attend the general class, another student with a disability ended up in the unit. After two successful court appeals, the Ministry persisted and eventually managed to win an appeal against these decisions on purely formal grounds. One of the main reasons for her being kept in the Larnaca high school unit is, according to the mother, that the pupil serves the teachers in caring for the children in the special unit," it added.
In another case, the mother of a child with Down Syndrome, it is reported, after attending pre-primary school, "was misled by Ministry officials who assured her that her daughter would supposedly be given remedial teaching and insisted that 'for the good of the child' she should be enrolled in a special unit a long distance from her place of residence, with the result that the single mother had to move. The environment of the special unit created enormous stress for the student (her hair fell out) and resulted in severe regression and psychosocial problems that were not previously present."
Another pupil in a kindergarten in Limassol, continues KYSOA, is "a victim of aggressive behaviour by the special class teacher herself, who in various ways even prevents her support. And this mother, like many other parents, is a victim of retaliation through her child for demanding the application of human rights and equal, quality education for her daughter. However, the Ministry of Education is making strong efforts to oblige the student to be placed in a special unit."
Another case, it adds, concerns an 8-year-old with a disability, where "without exception, all the specialists who follow him supported him attending a general class in his neighbourhood school, but this is not recorded in the three-line rejection letter of "ecialism" sent to his mother."
Another case, it adds, concerns an 8-year-old with a disability, where "without exception, all the specialists who follow him supported him attending a general class in his neighbourhood school, but this is not recorded in the three-line rejection letter of "ecialism" sent to his mother.
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