Tomáš Habart: Almost no one trusts Czech EdMin to institute inclusive education

The magazine Romano vod’i published the following interview with Tomáš Habart of the NGO People in Need about his resignation from the National Action Plan for Inclusive Education Working Group in its June edition.

Q: The Working Group on the National Action Plan for Inclusive Education (Národní akční plán inkluzívního vzdělávání – NAPIV) at the Czech Education Ministry was created in March 2010 with what concrete aims?

A: The aim was to increase the level of inclusion in the Czech education system, which required formulating proposals for changes in various areas, from counseling to diagnostics, from pre-school education to higher education, including the training and continuing education of pedagogical staff, etc. The changes should facilitate a common educational experience in mainstream schools for the greatest number of children. The current system is strongly selective and distributes the pupils, often at a very young age, into various kinds and types of schools, from “special education”, or rather the “practical elementary schools”, to elite elementary schools and academic high schools. However, the barriers between these schools, especially between special schools and mainstream education, are not very permeable. This essentially determines the educational career and subsequent achievements of pupils with special educational needs in particular. International studies and the experiences of school systems in other countries clearly demonstrates that inclusive schooling and the opening up of systems is the road to take toward a better education for these pupils and for making the entire educational system more effective.

Q: At the end of May, more than 50 experts left the Working Group, which had only met once prior to that. Which of those concrete aims has been successfully met?

A: Basically none of them. The first meeting of the group took place in June 2010, during the previous administration, the one that adopted NAPIV. Members of the group distributed themselves into several sub-groups that were supposed to start work after the summer holidays. However, when Minister Dobeš took office, “inclusion” became just a rhetorical device covering up the actual state of affairs: NAPIV was stopped, the team that had been involved in it and in the design of other materials was dissolved, and completed amendments to ministerial decrees on the education of pupils with special educational needs and on the activities of school counseling facilities were removed from the table and then redrafted to change as little as possible.

Q: Why has almost nothing been done?

A: The ministry did not convene the next meeting of the group until the end of January 2011. At that meeting, it presented a newly-designed structure for the group based on a medical model for integration, which focuses on various types of disability or disadvantage. This was a model we had already previously rejected. When pupils are educated according to their membership in a predefined category, the approach taken toward them is a blanket approach for the group of which they supposedly are a member. Inclusion, however, presumes that first and foremost there will be support provided directly to the pupil on the basis of his or her individual needs. This new structure was criticized by many members of the NAPIV Working Group; nevertheless, some of the subgroups did their best to develop their activities even within such a framework. However, without clear direction and support from the ministry, it was not possible to move forward. Given the ministry’s ongoing unwillingness to debate these issues with us, we decided to leave.

Q: Many other experts have also left the ministry during Minister Dobeš’s time in office, from Klára Laurenčíková to Viktor Hartoš. Can there be any sort of fulfillment of NAPIV under Dobeš that won’t be a mere formality?

A: NAPIV formally continues to run, because the ministry needs to show it to foreign institutions as a functioning procedure, but the fulfillment of its original intention is prevented by two obstacles at a minimum: 1) the absence of genuine interest in inclusive changes and 2) the restructuring of the Working Group, described above, which in principle contravenes the very concept of inclusion.

Q: Why did Minister Dobeš, in your opinion, carry out this policy of rejecting the opinions of respected experts in government?

A: Politics. There is not enough pressure from the public – the fact that the ministry is not explaining the concept of inclusion means the public is not much interested in the issue. Topics such as compensatory exams at elementary schools, the drawing of EU funds, the minister’s hiring policy, or the statewide leaving exam attract much more attention.

Q: Does the Czech Republic face any concrete recourse for ignoring the judgment of the European Court for Human Rights and international treaties? What will happen?

A: There is a risk of sanctions, and not only for not meeting our obligations as per the Court’s judgment. The Czech Republic is bound to support inclusive education by international conventions and we cannot rule out the possibility that other lawsuits on this issue will follow at Strasbourg as well as complaints to other international institutions. This does not concern only Romani children – other children, such as cancer patients, also suffer discrimination and unequal access to education.

Q: What would have to change for those 50 experts (including you) to return to collaborating with the ministry?

A: All it would take would be genuine support for inclusive education, not just declarations of support. However, almost none of the groups involved believe this will happen under the current minister.