Country Report - Finland

3rd Workshop on Training of Teachers of the Visually Impaired in Europe,
Warsaw, Poland, 3 - 6 April 2002

by mrs Tarja Hännekäinen

1. Legislation with respect to integration

According to the law of basic education the municipality has an obligation to provide the basic education for all individuals who are of school age, or to arrange for them to have access to education comparable to comprehensive school education. The primary choice is the local school with necessary supportive care and rehabilitation services.
If due to his handicap, an impaired child cannot be educated within nine-year comprehensive school system, his education begins one year earlier than normal and lasts for eleven years. Of those eleven years not more than two years may be used for pre-school education.

2. Provisions with respect to facilities in integrated settings

Staff: Every v.i. child (and his parents and teachers) is appointed an itinerant teacher. An itinerant teacher gives information on the local level to school. School can also send a teacher/s and/or an assistant to a course at Jyväskylä School (pedagogical resource centre for v.i.). Local authorities pay all the costs of these courses.
This system functions quite well with blind and severely partially sighted children. Demands of the milder low vision children are much more difficult to understand and that is one reason for teachers not to attend the special courses.

Equipment: A child receives his equipments from hospital (e.g. optical aids) or local school authorities (e.g. special desk). All equipments needed are beforehand written down in his IEP.

Textbooks in Braille / large print: A teacher orders all text-books in the format a child needs them. Child's school pays for the books. Text-books in Braille are ordered from the National Library for the Visually Impaired. Books in large print are not avaible, because the main trend is to read with optical aids. If large print is needed, every school has to enlarge necessary texts by copying it.

Lessons in O&M, ADL, Social skills

Orientation and mobility: The local O&M instructor I paid by the hospital. The guidance is one part of rehabilitation services.

Adl: There are few instructors for adl. Some of the orientation and mobility instructors take also care of adl. Mainly children practise adl in every day life and during their temporary education courses at Jyväskylä School.

Social skills: No instructors. Mainly stressed in everyday life and at temporary education courses at Jyväskylä School. Social skills are also an important theme in discussions during courses for teachers and assistants and school visits

3. Relation with the Special School for the v.i.

The rehabilitation worker from local hospital asks the permission from parents to report a child to the register of Jyväskylä School. After registration the child attending local school (and his parents and school personnel) can receive supportive services from Jyväskylä School. These supportive services are such as regional tutoring services, training teachers, assistants and other school personnel, and temporary education and assessment courses for children.
The supportive work for the local schools is mainly organized by the Jyväskylä School, which is the pedagogical resource center for the v.i.

4. Itinerant teachers /support teachers

Do they receive special training

Where are they based

At a special school, in a resource centre, in a local agency, elsewhere

In Finland there are different ways in organizing services of supportive teachers:

Itinerant teachers, paid by Jyväskylä School (state):

1. Teachers who are based at Jyväskylä School works mainly with courses for teachers and children. They are also pointed a certain geographical area to do consulting work for local schools.
2. Teachers whose main work is to consult local schools of their certain area (the area is much bigger than with teachers in the case a). These teachers can live somewhere else than Jyväskylä.
3. A special teacher having his own work in local school and is paid one day a week for working as a consultant for v.i. children in certain area.

All these teachers are in tight contact to the resource centre, Jyväskylä School.

Itinerant teachers paid by local authorities (municipality):

A municipality pays the salary for a special teacher who takes care of his own area.
This year we have two teachers of this kind. The problem is the lack of co-operation with the municipalities and resource centre.

How is the ratio: itinerant teacher / number of children:
As the situation varies so much depending the role and work of itinerant teachers, the ratio varies too. Approximately it can be from 30 to 120 children.

What is their task at mainstream school:
To support v.i. children, to support the classroom teacher, other:
They have to support a child during lessons, discuss with teachers, give guidance to a child, assistant, teacher, give information to school staff, build up networks at the local level.

Do they have a task with respect to the parents:
Before they visit the school, they (or classroom teacher) inform parents about the visit and ask the permission to meet the child. . Parents can also contact itinerant teacher before visit. In the end of a consulting day, it is common to have a meeting with all participants, including parents.

5. What is the task of your University, Faculty, College etc in preparing itinerant teachers

The University of Jyväskylä has a department for special education, which runs courses for training all kinds of special teachers. Courses for teachers specializing for visual impairment are run rare. There is no special program for training itinerant teachers.

6. What are the major changes with regard to education for v.i. children and youth in your country since the Bartislawa workshop 1999?

Courses for teachers specializing for visual impairment are run rare, almost only every tenth year. Last course was held in 1995. Different organizations for visual impairment, e.g. the Finnish Federation for the Visually Impaired, were worried about the small amount of specialized teachers teaching children with visual impairment. Last year these organizations applied for a special budget from the Ministry of Education in order to make it possible for the University of Jyväskylä to organize a new course. The budget was given and a new course for teachers specializing in visual impairment is starting in August 2002.

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