Inclusive Education: From feasible to desirable

Inclusive Education: From feasible to desirable

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According to the most recent OECD report[1] (OECD, 2022), developed at the request of the Ministry of Education, and entitled “Review of Inclusive Education in Portugal”, Portugal is one of the OECD countries that presents the most comprehensive legislation on of inclusive education, constituting the publication of Decree-Law no. 54/2018, of July 6, another legislative milestone in the process of inclusive education in Portugal. The report (op. cit) refers to the challenges associated with its application, namely teaching competence in the area of inclusive education and the sharing of good practices (between teachers from the same school and between teachers from different schools), referring to the need for a collective commitment to ensuring that no one is left behind and that, in fact, every student is supported in reaching their full potential. It is this purpose - to enhance the learning of students who reveal knowledge and skills that go beyond what is expected in specific situations - that marks the big difference between the aforementioned Decree-Law and Decree-Law no. January, given that it promotes, in addition to selective and additional measures, universal measures aimed at all students. The comparison between the results of the implementation of the two decree-laws is evidenced in the document “People with disabilities in Portugal: Human Rights Indicators 2022” (Pinto, Neca & Bento, 2022), which states that: a) in 2020 /2021 measures to support learning and inclusion were mobilized for 6.7% of the student population attending compulsory public education in mainland Portugal, compared to 6.2% in 2017/2018 (last year of implementation of Decree-Law n .º 3/2008); b) the current model of inclusive education (resulting from Decree-Law no. 54/2018) allowed for greater coverage of children who have selective and/or additional support measures in pre-school and 1st Cycle education, which contrasts with the reduction in the number of young people receiving support in the transition from the 1st to the 2nd cycle and from the 3rd cycle to secondary education; c) 85.6% of students with Technical-Pedagogical Reports spent 80% or more time in class, compared to 53.3% of students with Individual Educational Programs, who spent less than 60% of time in class.

Based on this panorama, the purpose of this research project is to understand and describe how the inclusion processes (from organizational strategies to curricular options) conducted by public schools in the north of Portugal have changed over the last 5 years, in response to Decree-Law No. 54/2018, in order to highlight what has become and what has fallen short of the purpose of the Decree-Law, in order to ensure the aforementioned collective commitment. To this end, in methodological terms, the options fall into quantitative and qualitative methodologies, with statistical treatment and content analysis, respectively. In a first stage, individual semi-structured interviews will be carried out with directors (or whoever they nominate), EMAEI team coordinators and self-assessment team coordinators, as well as focus groups with class director coordinators (with the participation of possible project coordinators and citizenship and development coordinators) and teachers from the 910 disciplinary group, to access the organizational development of schools and its repercussion in terms of student inclusion. In a second stage, online questionnaires will be applied to teachers from all cycles/levels of education with 7 or more years of service, to access the level of transformation of practices aimed at the inclusion of all students, and the professional development itself. . The results obtained in the previous steps will be analyzed and discussed with a view to comparing them with the ‘short-term policy recommendations’ presented by the OECD in March 2022 (OECD, 2022). This will result in a set of proposals that are intended to be relevant within the scope of educational policies, for the benefit of all those who, as part of compulsory education, can see the necessary conditions for their personal and academic development met, regardless of the organization school they attend.

[1] Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, translation of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

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Research Group
Special Education and Inclusive Pedagogy

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