1st EBU International Conference on Education, 19-23 July 2000, Montegrotto Terme (Padua) - Italy
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
I bring you many warm regards from the families with visually impaired children in the Czech Republic. I'd especially like to thank Mr. Enzo Tioli and the Unione Italiana Ciechi for their invitation for us to come to this conference and for enabling us to take an active part in this event. Our country has gone through quite a few positive changes in the last decade which have also influenced the situation of families with visually impaired children. Before 1990 there was practically no support available to families with young visually impaired children. Children of preschool and school age were allowed to attend only special schools for the visually impaired which meant in practice that they lived in separation from their families starting from the age of three.
What does the situation look like today? There is a network of early intervention care centers in the Czech Republic now which offer support, guidance and professional assistance to families particularly with blind and multiply disabled children. They provide the latest scientific findings as well as contacts with other families. They help families with integration into society. The families who make use of this kind of care usually decide to utilize an opportunity which has been available only since 1990, that is to educate children with disabilities together with non-disabled children. It means in reality that parents visit a school (kindergarten, primary or secondary school) in the area of their residence and get information about the possible admission of their visually impaired child to the school. They enter into dialogue with the school principal and express all the reasons supporting their child's admission. Success also depends on the flexibility of the school which is influenced by a number of factors, such as the personality of the principal and teachers and previous experience obtained by the school itself or by somebody else in that area. It can be generally said that placing children with low vision into a regular school is easier than children with more profound visual impairments. The reality is also such that a child is always accepted at a special school if the parents wish so, whereas he or she is admitted into a regular school only when its principal agrees to it. There is another option offered in the form of special classes (in kindergartens as well as primary schools) provided by regular schools in areas where there are more children with visual impairments. In these cases for many, it is necessary to commute though. The child is, however, together with his or her family every day and is not isolated from his or her non-disabled peers either. The third option is education in special schools for children (or adolescents) with visual impairments. Schools of this category are usually residential (boarding) and children who do not live within easy reach of these institutions are accommodated there. The participation of the family in upbringing and education is at its lowest in this case. In rare cases, parents use the option of individual private education.
The time has come today to deal with needs of families with children with multiple disabilities. These children were exempt from the obligation of mandatory school attendance in the past. More and more often nowadays there is the possibility for children with multiple disabilities to be included in an education programme according to their individual abilities.
Understandably so, parents invest most of their efforts, work and initiatives into the mainstreaming of their visually impaired children. Cooperation on the parents' side is rightly expected of them. Centers of specialised guidance and counselling should become another partner for the school and the family as well. In short, they are to provide counselling and guidance to the school as well as the family, including things like assisting with getting special textbooks and various aids. The centers are established at special schools for children with visual impairments (partially sighted or blind). The quality of these services and cooperation ranges from excellent to barely satisfactory. It depends greatly on the professionals in the centers of specialised guidance and counselling. The quality is, however, also influenced by the principal of the special school who simultaneously also acts as head of the center. Sometimes conflicting interests arise when it becomes an issue that the special school finds a sufficient number of students. There is often a problem with the lack of teaching aids and textbooks in large print and Braille. The enthusiasm of parents becomes important here who together with the teachers of the child make up and create specific teaching tools and aids for the child. Parents (mostly mums) transcribe textbooks into Braille.
Parents enjoy very good cooperation with and support of the Jan Deyl Conservatory in Prague which provides music teachers as well as students and their parents with advice and Braille music notation materials right from the beginner stage of music education.
There is not enough time for me to speak in detail about all the themes I've touched on so far. I'd like, however, to mention briefly the way in which the Association of Parents and Friends of Blind and Partially Sighted Children in the Czech Republic supports the efforts of parents of children with visual impairments. We work in close cooperation with early intervention care centers and families with older children, participate in meetings of the families that are currently receiving the care of these centers where they exchange their experience and can ask us various questions, etc. If clients, who don't have to be members of the Association, wish so, we take part in talks with principals and teachers of a school where the family would like to place their child. We can provide evidence, documentation and contacts that can help the school decide to accept the child with a visual impairment. We regularly hold practical workshops and conferences on themes of integration for parents and teachers of our children. They serve as a place for sharing experiences, ideas as well as self-made aids. Thanks to funding received also through an assistance program of the European Union, we've obtained conditions for the conversion of textbooks and other study materials into large print as well as Braille. We've been able to create a database of these aids so that they can be lent by families and schools who no longer use them to places where they are currently needed. Through cooperation with some publishers we've received as a gift a number of textbooks in digital format. In this way we can alleviate the hard work which is inherently present in manual transcribing of textbooks that I've mentioned earlier. We are also trying to get access to materials in other countries and translate them for our parents. Furthermore, we're organizing "discovery" trips for older children and adolescents who are often also joined by parents in the role of guides for the blind. Our recent trips have been to Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg with the aim of learning about activities and institutions of the EU and only a week ago we returned from a trip to Corsica.
Despite the indisputable improvement which is obvious in the range of choices for the education of children with visual impairments in the Czech Republic, there is still a lot work to be done by us in the future. We can definitely see the many talents and great enthusiasm our children have and want to put into their education. The number of university students who are blind or partially sighted is increasing every year.
I'd like to conclude by wishing all of us and our children with visual impairments as well a lot of strength, good conditions for living and working, much success and finally many future opportunities for similar meetings.
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