The shortage of teachers in Berlin is becoming a risk for the legal right to school inclusion. The Education and Science Union (GEW) and the Advisory Council for People with Disabilities warned of this on Tuesday.
They complain that schools are increasingly being forced to compensate for the shortage by cutting back on special education. Parent representatives reported at the event in the GEW headquarters that there are families who are trying to get schooling at home in order to be able to better support their children.
The fact that the teacher shortage is at the expense of the quality of inclusion became clear in May, when the Senate Department for Education announced that the tasks of the special educators could be largely taken over by less qualified “pedagogical teaching assistants” if the special educators were not enough. This announcement had caused so much protest that the education administration changed the relevant wording in the regulation for staffing just before the summer holidays.
Now it is said again that theoretically all eight support hours that are due to autistic, deaf or children with special needs for mental development could be given by special education teachers. However, there is an addition to the regulation that states that this only applies if there are enough qualified personnel. Otherwise, all eight lessons can be given by more or less trained teaching assistants.
Anne Lautsch from the Berlin Alliance for School Inclusion made it clear what that means: “Then mandalas are painted in the adjoining room or Benjamin Blümchen cassettes are listened to”, instead of targeted support taking place. Parents “couldn’t hear the word mandala anymore”.
The proportion of children with intellectual disabilities has been increasing for years
As a result, the children lose a lot. For example, there are good programs that children can use to learn arithmetic despite cognitive limitations. However, the relevant training would not suffice.
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In fact, due to the lack of staff, the educational administration felt compelled to halve the further training offers for educational teaching assistants (PUs). The GEW calculated on Tuesday that it would take many years until all currently active “PUs” were trained.
Not to mention the teaching aids that would need to be added in the years to come to meet demand. Because the demand is increasing enormously. In particular, the proportion of children with intellectual disabilities has been increasing for years. They are the ones who need the strongest support. New support centers for these children have long since been built because they cannot all be included.
“We are seeing regression in school inclusion”
This development is strongly criticized by the state advisory board for people with disabilities. He calls for more efforts – also with regard to the study places for special education teachers. A spokesman for the education administration said that his authority had registered corresponding claims as part of the negotiations on the current university framework agreements.
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However, the Advisory Board is particularly dissatisfied with the shift in care away from the special educators to the teaching assistants due to the shortage. This means “unequal treatment that massively denies equal opportunities to a single group,” criticized Gerlinde Bendzuck, Vice Chair of the State Advisory Council for People with Disabilities. According to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, inclusive education is “not an option, but a duty as well as a right and a right”. “We are seeing regression in school inclusion.”
Bendzuck also criticized the fact that the interest group for people with disabilities was not involved, although participation was required by the State Equal Rights Act. The German Institute for Human Rights also sees a violation of the obligation to participate and is in favor of launching a class action lawsuit against the changed regulation.
Places at support centers are rare
Anne Lautsch from the Alliance for School Inclusion reported that there are “many desperate parents who feel compelled to register their child at a special needs school or to switch there, even though they want their child to have an inclusive school close to where they live and are actually entitled to one “. In view of the lack of resources and even worse conditions in mainstream schools due to the planned changes, she fears serious deterioration, for example that even more children will only have shortened remedial education or no remedial education at all.
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In addition, the places at support centers are rare. In some Berlin districts, children would have to switch to support centers in neighboring districts or even to Brandenburg.
Mario Dobe, newly appointed chairman of the Advisory Board on Inclusion by Education Senator Astrid-Sabine Busse (SPD), announced to the Tagesspiegel that he would take up the issue at the Advisory Board meeting on September 13 and exchange information with the Alliance for School Inclusion wool.
