3rd Workshop on Training of Teachers of the Visually Impaired in Europe,
Warsaw, Poland, 3 - 6 April 2002
by mrs Ligita Geida
The system of education of visually impaired children in Latvia is quite separated from other kinds of special needs because of different specificity of problems.
On the other hand, specialists working with visually impaired children also are involved in the work with those with other health' problems. The segregated system of educational work with children with disabilities in Latvia is based on "leading" disability of disabled children. But usually even if leading disability is the other, but visual impairment is presented, there are mainly decisions of pedagogical- medical commissions [Instruction No. 116 by 16/02/2000 about pedagogical-medical commissions] (the main body that decides about more appropriate educational establishment for every child who has any disability) that this child has to attend school for visually impaired children. This is why School for visually impaired children has become the only establishment that is competent in the work with children with severe visual and multiple in combinations with visual impairments.
In Latvia such establishment is Strazdumuiza Boarding School - Training Center for Blind and Partially Sighted Children. Board of Methodological work of School - Center is working as a mediator between all stages of system of education visually impaired children.
Changes in the system of education of the visually impaired started to be realized in the middle of 1996. Until that time work with blind and partially sighted children generally was concentrated in the school and kindergartens for visually impaired in Riga and in some special groups in mainstream kindergartens in other cities of Latvia. Such a segregated system of education of visually impaired had its positive and negative sides. The positive sides were:
The negative sides were:
In 1991, when the independence of Latvia was returned, some quite negative changes appeared in the educational system of visually impaired children. Those were:
The result of these changes was widening of functions of School - Center. The functions of the school were and still are:
The following functions of the school as a new - made Training center are additionally to already mentioned:
It means that working area was extended out of "borders" of Boarding School, and many visually impaired children previously stayed out of educational process started to be involved into pedagogical activities and delay in their development started to became noticeable less and less.
The main goal of these changes was giving of the right and possibility for parents to choose the place and forms of the education for their child.
Today educational system of visually impaired children consists from following parts:
Concerning to the register of visually impaired children. We have made the contacts with social, medical and educational establishments in the different regions of the country. More successful have been contacts to departments of social help because children with severe visual impairments have to have a financial support from the Social Department. Such is the decision of the Ministry of Social Welfare of Latvia [by rule "About medical and social protection of disabled people" (3-th of 10-th clause)]. It is why all parents, also from unfavorable families, try to register their children in the social departments. The medical organizations are not very responsive always. It is connected to the finance of these organizations. If their patient will change the doctor, the hospital will lose the finance for this patient ["Statement of financing of health care by 12/01/99]. That is why in many cases requests for information about visually impaired children are refused, even if it is not necessary for the child to attend the Boarding school for visually impaired in Riga (he is able to continue studies in mainstream school with or without support of our Center). The mainstream schools and School Departments in the regions are very interested in our help in the concrete cases, but they have not more information about other visually impaired children. That is why we prepared and spread in the mainstream schools an informative leaflet with information about visual impairment and problems that it can cause. Therefore we are working on suggestions for connecting of all these organizations to get the full information about every visually impaired child who needs any kind of help.
As a result of these contacts was observation and evaluation of big amount of visually impaired children in all regions of the Republic. For comparing some numbers: 195 pupils are studying in our boarding school this academic year. 198 school - age children with severe visual impairments studied in mainstream schools last school year. 91 preschool age children are registered, and half of them do not attend preschool educational establishment neither have early intervention services. During our visits at places we have found children with different kinds and levels of visual impairment from different levels of amblyopic to total blindness. We named our work with these children as an arranging of our unarranged integration, because the main part of them has been started to receive their education in mainstream schools without our consultations or professional help. We evaluated visual possibilities of these mainstreamed visually impaired children. After that we offered the possible optical and other kinds of devices, like magnifiers, light filters, text books with enlarged letters (such books were arranged specially for our school in the printing house, and a certain amount was printed for visually impaired children in mainstream schools). [Receiving of these aids (except of printed materials) is regulated by Instruction of Ministry No. 262 by 08/08/2000 "Order of receiving technical aids".] Also we introduced these children, their relatives and teachers with the utilization of such devices and with other methods of the optimization of low vision of their children or pupils. Now every of these children is registered in our date base. They and people connected to them are informed about the possibilities of our help and have the right to ask for our help whenever they need it. Certain work is done also with preschoolers who did not receive any pedagogical help until the time when we met them. Consultative work with the regular preschool teachers helped us settle some of these kids in mainstream or special kindergartens. With some of them and their parents we continue regular work at their homes. Some families are coming to our center for some days. There is the possibility for them to attend different kinds of special lessons.
Work with multihandicapped children is still under need of serious development. Previous system of education of visually impaired children did not take into consideration these children, we even did not know about them. But now we have found a considerable number of multihandicapped children with visual impairment in our country, and we have to look for solution of problems connected to their education. Unfortunately we do not have room enough in our school to open a special class for these children. Some of them are coming to us or special kindergartens or groups periodically, and we work with some of them in their homes. But we understand that it is not a real solution, and we still have to work on this.
The other successful form of the work with visually impaired and multihandicapped children and their parents is summer camps. The first summer camp was organized in the summer of 1997. We tried to invite blind preschool age children and their parents who did not receive any pedagogical help before. The results were wondering for children and adults alike. In autumn of 1997 parents and specialists of the work with visually impaired children decided to organize "Association of Visually Impaired Children, their Parents and Friends."
Since that time these camps are organized every year, and from 1999 - two camps parallely: one - for children from birth to 3 years old, the other - for preschool - age children. As it was said already, for now this is the main form of work with multihandicapped visually impaired children, and for great part of them - beginning of searching of possibilities to receive further pedagogical work.
So, since functions of School - Center widened, we started to work with people with severe visual impairments of all ages, and noticeable part of this work is devoted to younger and preschool age children. This work contains:
This part of work of School - Center is very important because of following situation. Preschool education of visually impaired children is regulated by Law of Education and Instruction No. 360 of Ministry of Education by 02/07/99 about Model regulations of mainstream preschool educational establishment and special preschool educational establishment that says that all visually impaired children have to be accepted in these kindergartens or groups.
Until changes in political situation in former Soviet Union all kindergartens were divided in following categories:
For now it does not has to work in Latvia [also by Instruction No. 360], but it seems that some of preschool establishments still accept this order, and this is why some of severely visually impaired children until school age stay out of educational system. It is not possible to change this situation because municipalities regulate work of these establishments that finances them.
Professional education of visually impaired youth is realized out of Strazdumuiza Boarding School - Training Center for Blind and Partially Sighted Children. Until beginning of changes of political and economical system of Latvia system of enterprises of Society of the Blind was well established. Students of school for blind and partially sighted were taught to acquire trade to work in some of these enterprises after graduating from the school. In this way future work for them was guaranteed. For now applied information science is taught during the secondary school. After graduating from that students have secondary education and depending of their abilities can enter professional or higher educational establishments (mainly in humanitarian subjects). There is a Program of rehabilitation studies for blind youth in Center of Rehabilitation of Society of the Blind. Content of these studies is worked out by Ministry of Social welfare and regulated by Law "About medical and social protection of disabled people (3-th part of 10-th clause)" and "Instruction about guarantee of services of social rehabilitation for people with visual and hearing impairments financed by governmental budget". It consists mainly from acquiring of social skills, Braille (mainly for those who have lost vision recently), communication skills, computer skills and course of massage and weaving as professional course. There is educational establishment for professional studies for disabled people in Jurmala, Bulduri (economy, book-keeping) that is more appropriate for low vision, not for blind people. In other cases visually impaired youth have to attend regular educational establishments to receive further education without any preferences. The only help in these cases are personal contacts of specialists of School - Center to staff of these establishments to let them understand possible problems in educational process of certain student because of visual impairment.
Today Strazdumuiza Boarding School - Training Centre for Blind and Partially sighted Children is the central specialized educational establishment for blind and partially sighted children in Latvia and also the basis for training of specialists for work in the field of education of blind visually impaired.
Speaking on the subject of integration, in Latvia it is on the very beginning although this direction of our work has been started since we obtained status of Training Center. Today educational policy of our country more and more is turning into direction of integration of all special needs children in mainstream educational establishments. Nevertheless we have not had a possibility to integrate any blind child in mainstream school, but we have some blind preschoolers in mainstream kindergartens. As showed our research and inquiries, mainly this situation can be explained by inability of pedagogues of mainstream educational establishments and sometimes also specialists of specialized preschool educational establishments for visually impaired children to work with severely visually impaired children. This is why, as a Center, we are trying to educate them by common work with Latvian University through realization of 2 years study course for further education mainly for staff already working in specialized educational establishments for visually impaired. Desire for studies in this course is not very high since it is quite expensive for those who are working in the field of education in Latvia. Also we worked out 72 hours program for developing of professional skills in all specialists in their work having contact with visually impaired children, youth and adults. Ministry of Science and Education of Latvia certified this program. Besides, we started to organize annual seminars for those who could be involved in the work with visually impaired persons of all ages. Courses of lectures on introduction with basics of work with visually impaired children in higher pedagogical establishments of Latvia let to make more competent prospective pedagogues of mainstream schools for possible work with visually impaired children.
We believe that System of education of visually impaired children is organized in right way in Latvia now. There is possibility to receive some kind of assistance for visually impaired children of every age. Problems that exist today mostly are connected to financial problems of all educational system generally. We have enough information from Europe countries and America to compare different systems of assistance for blind and visually impaired. We have compared them and built up our own model of such system that will work excellently in the case of improvement of our financial situation.
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