Inclusive Education in Japan

What is the Salamanca Statement?

The Salamanca Statement is a major international policy document adopted in 1994 at the “World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality”, held in Salamanca, Spain, and organized by UNESCO and the Spanish government.

The Salamanca Statement emphasizes the right to education for all children, particularly those with special educational needs.

It promotes inclusive education policies and practices to ensure that schools can serve all children effectively.

The conference was attended by representatives of 92 governments and 25 international organizations.

From the Japanese Government, the following two delegates attended:

The statement’s key points are:

  1. Inclusive Education as a Right:
    It affirms that every child has a fundamental right to education, and that schools should accommodate all children, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, or other conditions.

  2. Promotion of Inclusive Schools:
    It calls on governments to adopt the principle of inclusive education, meaning that children with special educational needs should be educated in regular schools wherever possible.

  3. Adaptation of Curricula and Teaching:
    Schools should adjust their curriculum, organization, and teaching strategies to meet the diverse needs of all learners.

  4. Policy and Legislation Reform:
    It urges the global community to reform education systems and policies to reflect inclusive values and practices.

  5. Teacher Training:
    Emphasis is placed on the need for teacher education to support inclusive education.

The document is only 52 pages long, please read it in its entirety.

Below are some excerpts.

Foreword

We, the delegates of the World Conference on Special Needs Education … hereby reaffirm our commitment to Education for All, recognizing the necessity and urgency of providing education for children, youth and adults with special educational needs within the regular education system, and further hereby endorse the Framework for Action on Special Needs Education, that governments and organizations may be guided by the spirit of its provisions and recommendations.

We believe and proclaim that:

  • every child has a fundamental right to education, and must be given the opportunity to achieve and maintain an acceptable level of learning,
  • every child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs,
  • education systems should be designed and educational programmes implemented to take into account the wide diversity of these characteristics and needs,
  • those with special educational needs must have access to regular schools which should accommodate them within a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs,
  • regular schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an inclusive society and achieving education for all; more over, they provide an effective education to the majority of children and improve the efficiency and ultimately the cost-effectiveness of the entire education system.

Introduction

The guiding principle that informs this Framework is that schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other conditions.
…
In the context of this Framework, the term “special educational needs” refers to all those children and youth whose needs arise from disabilities or learning difficulties.
…
Schools have to find ways of successfully educating all children, including those who have serious disadvantages and disabilities. There is an emerging consensus that children and youth with special educational needs should be included in the educational arrangements made for the majority of children.

This has led to the concept of the inclusive school.

The challenge confronting the inclusive school is that of developing a child-centred pedagogy capable of successfully educating all children, including those who have serious disadvantages and disabilities.

The merit of such schools is not only that they are capable of providing quality education to all children; their establishment is a crucial step in helping to change discriminatory attitudes, in creating welcoming communities and in developing an inclusive society.

A change in social perspective is imperative. For far too long, the problems of people with disabilities have been compounded by a disabling society that has focused upon their impairments rather than their potential.

New Thinking in Special Needs Education

Inclusion and participation are essential to human dignity and to the enjoyment and exercise of human rights.
…
Experience in many countries demonstrates that the integration of children and youth with special educational needs is best achieved within inclusive schools that serve all children within a community.

The fundamental principle of the inclusive school is that all children should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. Inclusive schools must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of their students, accommodating both different styles and rates of learning and ensuring quality education to all through appropriate curricula, organizational arrangements, teaching strategies, resource use and partnerships with their communities. There should be a continuum of support and services to match the continuum of special needs encountered in every school.

Guidelines for Action at the National Level

Educational policies at all levels, from the national to the local, should stipulate that a child with a disability should attend the neighbourhood school that is, the school that would be attended if the child did not have a disability.

The practice of “mainstreaming” children with disabilities should be an integral part of national plans for achieving education for all.

Both policies and financing arrangements should encourage and facilitate the development of inclusive schools.

Progress towards inclusion should be carefully monitored through the collection of statistics capable of revealing the number of students with disabilities who benefit from resources, expertise and equipment intended for special needs education as well as the number of students with special educational needs enrolled in regular schools.