1st EBU International Conference on Education, 19-23 July 2000, Montegrotto Terme (Padua) - Italy
Since its foundation in 1938, the O.N.C.E. has undertaken the responsibility for educating the Spanish blind and partially sighted as one of its fundamental aims. Although, in theory, the State was responsible for providing education for its citizens, in practice it has been the O.N.C.E. which has taken care of persons with visual impairment.
In a first period, from 1938 to the late seventies, the O.N.C.E. carried out this task at five specific centres for educating the blind and partially sighted set up in Alicante, Barcelona, Madrid, Pontevedra and Seville. These centres were supplemented by others providing occupational training in areas such as telephony or physiotherapy.
Since the late seventies, thanks to the efforts of a great number of educational professionals, and above all, parent-teacher associations, the new educational tendencies favouring the integration of people with disabilities in ordinary schools began to be introduced. After attempts in some areas of the country, the educational care teams for blind and partially sighted persons integrated into ordinary schools were set up on a definite basis. Since then, these teams, together with the five aforementioned centres form the resources on which the O.N.C.E. bases its educational model for the Spanish blind and partially sighted.
After some years of adapting to the new situation described above, the O.N.C.E. developed a framework which, on the principles of efficiency and streamlining, aims at addressing the new challenges facing education.
On a nationwide level, the Education Department of the O.N.C.E. is responsible for co-ordinating, overseeing, training of professionals, educational quality assessment as well as managing human, material and financial resources, student services, adaptation of the study place and the handing out of grants and other aid. Throughout the national territory the five educational resource centres belonging to this Education Department cover those aspects of educational care in their respective zones.
It is from these educational resource centres (C.R.E.) that the guidelines emanating from the Education Department in that area of influence are observed, and the educational action of all their elements is co-ordinated and relations with public administrations are maintained.
The C.R.E.s have a specific centre which offers direct care for boarding school pupils of primary education, secondary education, and vocational training; care for the deafblind where boarding school pupils receive classes; support teams for mainstream education which give support at school for students of all ages from early care to adult education; modular units charged with research, advising families and professionals regarding materials such as curricula development, basic skills, educational orientation, design of learning materials, etc.; a temporary educational care service charged with training the students or pupils, on an individual and group basis, in those aspects missing from the ordinary school; a residential service which apart from giving accommodation to the students and pupils of the specific centre, instructs them in daily living skills, socialisation, study habits and play, as well as serving as a support for professionals to meet and schools for parents etc.; a documentation service charged with gathering, cataloguing, and disseminating all the bibliography available on educating blind and partially sighted persons; and the administrative services.
With this framework the C.R.E.s cover the direct care to all those pupils and students in their area of influence, assessment to all the professionals whether at the boarding schools or within the infrastructure of the O.N.C.E., as well as family guidance.
Even though the O.N.C.E. considers one of its primary aims to be the educational care of blind and partially sighted people, it is also very true that these persons, enjoying full rights as citizens, must also make good use of the resources made available by the State in education. Therefore, and once all the hurdles have been overcome in the normal school situation, the O.N.C.E. has promoted a series of agreements with different public administrations allowing for better use of common resources covering educational needs throughout the national territory and homogenous action and thus, higher quality in education for the pupils cared for. In this way, the specific centres of the O.N.C.E. make full advantage of the educational agreements in the national education network. The support teams consist of professionals, itinerant teachers, psychologists, and pedagogues from both the O.N.C.E. as well as those in public administration; joint projects carried out for research and training and the necessary exchange of information and experience are promoted.
With these resources approximately 8,100 pupils are attended, of whom 7% are in special-needs education and 93% are in mainstream education. It is worth pointing out that approximately 40% of the pupils and students cared for present some other impairments to that of blindness, basically mental, thus increasing the difficulty of the care and demanding greater training in the professionals involved.
Summing up, the following conclusions can be made:
Despite the increase in, and the necessary implementation of, mainstream education the O.N.C.E. believes that the specialised centres play an important role due to the fact that the general education system is lacking in important aspects.
However, the educational framework of the O.N.C.E. has been designed to deliver educational care to whichever place necessary. It should be the families who decide which educational model they wish their children to receive.
Close collaboration with public administrations is absolutely necessary and unquestionable.
The evolution of the characteristics of the attended population will condition to a great extent the training of professionals as well as methodology and intervention strategies.
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