Motshekga leads ‘inclusivity summit’

THE Department of Basic Education has emphasised the importance of inclusive education for persons with disabilities in the access for education for all.

Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga led a jointly organised summit with the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities to host the Inclusive Education Summit yesterday under the theme “Accelerating Inclusive Education: Leaving No Learner Behind”.

The summit comes at a time when learners with disabilities continue to drop out of the formal education system at an alarming rate.

“An inclusive, just and fair society can only be achieved through collective action. We are in this together and we rely on support and counselling from experts and people who are active in this area, but also people who have a passion around working with children living with disabilities and people who understand the barriers and issues,” Motshekga said in her keynote address.

The objective of the two-day summit is to acknowledge the progress made and the gaps that still exist in the implementation of inclusive education; to contribute to formulating strategic interventions of addressing the gaps that exist in order to take inclusive education forward; and to develop a clear implementation plan relating to the next steps in inclusive education improvement.

The minister said that 137 303 learners compared to 64 000 learners in 2002 have enrolled in special and ordinary schools across the country.

“We have also established district-based and school-based support teams to co-ordinate inclusive education support services for teachers and learners. As a collective, these professionals advance the ideal of inclusive education, share best practices and craft and monitor implementation plans for the sector,” Motshekga said.

The minister added that in 2014, the department finalised a policy on screening, identification, assessment and support, which aimed to identify any signs of barriers to learning. She said recently the department’s focus had shifted to implementing a policy of screening, identification, assessment and support.

“In 2020 and 2021, 20 000 individual support plans were developed to support learners’ education needs at a school level. We have 500 public ordinary schools to full service schools in terms of the policy; however, by the end of 2018 we had already designated 848 full-services schools.”