Ingen lysbildetittel

1
Royal Ministry of Education and Research
Special Needs Education in Norway Marit
Hognestad, Norwegian Board of Education
Special Needs Education in Norway
2
The Norwegian school system

• 1976 One Education Act for all pupils
• All pupils were granted the right to suitable and
  adapted education in their local school but
  gradually! The process took 20 years.
• 1n 1996, 99.5 percent of the pupils were included
  in local schools
• Special education for pupils who are in need of
  it
• Statutory right based on expert Statement (6
  percent)

3
Curriculum

• All children with a right to SNE also have the
  right to an individual educational plan.
• Normally this plan is a mix of an individually
  adapted curriculum and the general curriculum for
  the class.
• Progress and content is evaluated every 6 months.

4
Integration or inclusion?

• Do the included children REALLY get suitable
  education?
• Do they really FEEL included?
• Integration is mostly related to resources,
  equipment and and physical structures.
• Inclusion is mostly related to values, attitudes
  and culture.

5
The Educational-Psycological Service

• Every municipality must have an Educational-
  Psycological Service, and are responsible for
  running the service
• The Educational and Psychological Service is an
  advisory body.
• About 285 offices throughout the country
• 2100 professionals
• psycologists (320), social workers (120),
  teachers in special education (750),educational
  psychologic advisers (600), others (300)

6
The Educational-Psycological Service

• The functions of the Educational-Psycological
  Service are
• to advice schools, teachers, parents and pupils
  directly and to follow up
• to give expert statements as a basis for
  Statutory right decision (which releases the
  funding)
• to monitor and evaluate the situation for pupils
  with special needs in school

7
Tasks for the educational- psycological service

• Learning problems
• - Social and emotional problems (anxiety,
• restlessness, depression, family-related
  problems)
• Behavioural problems, bad manners, violence,
• aggression
• Spoken language problems
• Physical challenges

8
Norwegian Support System for Special Education

• The municipalities/counties does not have the
  necessary competence regarding the needs of so
  called low incidence groups.
• In the early 90ies, the remains of the old system
  of special schools was finally removed. Most
  schools were closed, and some were chanced to
  National Resource Centres.
• This national support system is meant to assure
  the quality of the education by offering
  counselling and support to schools and the local
  educational-psychological service.

9
Transfer of resources

• In the late 90ies, there was lack of staff in the
  Educational-Psychological Service.
• The Parliament decided to strengthen the service
  at local level through the transfer of resources
  and expertise from some national resource centres
  for special needs education to the local level
  service.
• 300 new staff members. 20 increase. (But 434
  municipalities)

10
Capacity building programme

• A three-year practice-oriented capacity building
  programme has been running 2000 - 2002.
• Objective of the programme To improve the
  competence of the service in areas where the
  local communities and teachers need most support
  
• social and emotional problems
• reading and writing difficulties
• multiple learning difficulties

11
Alternative schools - alternative school units

• The main efforts to fight behavioural problems
  take place within each class and school.
• These challenges have high priority and different
  initiatives are taken to improve teachers skill.
• (programs, seminars, material)
• Still some school owners, specially in large
  cities, have organised so called "alternative
  schools" or "alternative school units", more or
  less closely connected to the local school.

12
Future challenges

• Less focus on
• special education
• diagnosis, categories of
• disability, difficulties
• Organisation, economics
• prosedure

• More focus on
• adapted and inclusive
• education for all pupils
• possibilities, resources
• and empowerment
• attitudes, skills, methods,
• general pedagogics