-
.
- Ελληνικά
"The Council of Ministers today approved a significant, increased number of school chaperones for children facing challenges in special integrated education," Minister of Education, Sports and Youth Dr Athena Michaelidou said today after the Council of Ministers.
"As we know, special education and the transition to integrated education has been from the beginning, and remains, one of the important priorities of this Government. Already, as we had announced, the school year this year was spent in a specific process on this issue, a dialogue was held with all partners, all their views and suggestions on the issues of special education and how we can move to integrated education were recorded and codified, and a number of measures were promoted from this year.
Next year is very critical because we are expected to get into issues of legislation and issues of expediting procedures from the moment a child is identified as a child facing special education challenges, integrated education, to the moment they leave the education system.
It is very important to say that the chaperones, the number of chaperones, is not news in itself. It is news to us, and the change that we have this year, is that as part of the modernization and upgrading of special education, these chaperones, these individuals who are employed by the School Boards, will have to go through mandatory training, which will help them tremendously in the role that they have to perform and the important tasks that they do, the critical tasks for us, with our children.
To say that for us it is very important the improvement in procedures that has been achieved since this year. It is also very important the differentiation of teaching, which we have worked very hard on in the last few months. That is, supporting and empowering our teachers to be able to have children with different challenges and different needs in their classrooms. To this end, we have already posted digital material in cooperation with Greece, which our teachers are invited to use. This will continue, since from the next school year onwards, our teachers, depending on the children they have in their classrooms, will be able to attend specialised training in a very focused and targeted way.
It is also very important for us to anticipate this issue in time, which is why we have included tools from pre-school education. In general, it is important for us that special education, this road to integrated education, continues unhindered by cooperation and dialogue, so that we can see tangible results, so that we can help children and their parents, who are already facing these challenges, to play their role in our education system, satisfying, nurturing their talents, their aptitudes, to the maximum extent that each and every one of them can."
In response to a reporter's question about the number of new chaperones, the minister replied, "It's around 250 additional chaperones. The goal is to get the school year off to a smooth start, to not have what we've typically had in the last few years, the last decade, running around for chaperones. Also to do a very good forecasting and streamlining, and we were able to do that this year, so that during the year we can meet additional needs."
Asked if the process starts immediately, the minister replied. From the beginning of September. And that was the goal. I should say that all the time before, all the Provincial Committees were invited to give their data in a very timely manner, so that we could have this decision today, which is for the entire next school year."
In response to a reporter's question about the numbers of school chaperones: "The specific numbers are 933 for elementary education. I recall that primary education covers kindergartens, primary schools and also special schools, where we have a large number there, and 363 in secondary education, and this goes up with the decision of the Council of Ministers to 242 new positions, additional in primary, and 37 in secondary.
Let me say again that the increase is also due to the timely assessment by the committees and the timely information of our Ministry about these needs, but mainly due to the increase in the number of cases that come to us in our schools, the expansion of preschool education, the increase in Thank you very much."
(EAT/NZ)
Contents of this article including associated images are owned by PIO
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or PIO
Source
Source[/P][/P]
