by Massimiliano Fanni Canelles
The article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifies how important education is for each individual and how this should allow the development of personality and “the reinforcement of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms “. Our national law must also take into account these principles and recognize that a disabled person an absolute individual right to designed to promote a suitable school placement. In Italy there are more than 160,000 students with disabilities certified by the local health services, compared to about 90,000 support teachers, 40,000 temporary workers.
But according to analysis conducted by the Study Centre Erickson, there is an additional 15-20% of students that have difficulty learning and education. The polemics which fell on the minister Gelmini in relation to cuts to education have increased in intensity when you are not discovered trace of the problem of disability in the “urgent measures in education and universities’ and due to of a directive, 69, economically inadequate for “building initiatives of training and qualification of integration ‘: Less than € 64 per student and teacher to just over 96. In the 2009, on the occasion of a confrontation between managers and experts from the Ministry of Education and further to the participation of associations of persons with disabilities, have been drafted the guidelines, then distributed to all schools. These collect a set of directive aimed at improving the integration of students with disabilities. They examine the Italian constitutional system and the legislative evolution, the organization of the Regional School Offices for optimization and use of resources, the establishment of G.L.I.R. (Working Groups regional institutions), the need to acquire, by schools, the legal personality (L.59/97).
This is of a important step to supporting a political educational integration leading, founded also on the bio-psycho-social model called ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health), codified by the World Health Organization. It is a classification that draws attention on the context in which places The Disabled, to promote their involvement in social activities. But to achieve this goal it is necessary to facilitate the didactics and increase the learning tools, and using new technologies. Students and families should therefore receive adequate training on the use of new information technologies. The students should be involved in the attention to the teaching materials, conduct of the class, the activities of reinforcement learning. And in the process of integration there must be the participation of all teachers, even those in charge of the curriculum to student with disabilities, as a support teacher. The education of students with disabilities is always been a strength of our educational system.
The Italian school has always been a welcoming community where all students, regardless of their functional diversity, have been able to experience personal growth and social development. But we must ask ourselves how it is possible that, in the last years, many parents of The Disabled students, both physical and psychological, have been forced to resort to the judiciary for being granted law to enjoy the hours of support caused. It is not the task of this paper provide the reply, but Who justify certain behaviors in terms of cost reduction knows that the right of disabled to school support is configured, in our legal system, the fundamental human right, not compressible and not subject to relations with other interests, such as budget.
Translated by Martina Delser
