Access to education and availability of quality education is often unevenly distributed across social groups, with growing evidence to suggest a correlation between pupils’ socio-economic backgrounds and their educational attainment. Without inclusive systems, particularly at the primary education level, evidence suggests that the social and learning gap will widen.
South East Europe’s troubled transition to democracy and market economy has been characterised by severe problems stemming from religious and ethnical cleavages that were exacerbated by armed conflicts throughout most of the 1990s. Unresolved problems of statehood and nationhood – largely driven by issues of minority rights – seem to have been the single most important factor in explaining different transition trajectories across the region. Thus, inclusive education policies are of utmost importance in restoring social cohesion in ethnically divided post-conflict societies.
The Council of Europe is implementing a joint project with the European Commission on ‘Regional Support to Inclusive Education’. This project focuses on the need for a regional approach to the field of inclusive education in South East Europe, due to similar social and political economic contexts and problems. It will help 49 schools across South East Europe to develop inclusive cultures, policies and practices, and aims to increase knowledge and understanding of inclusive education across the region through awareness-raising, mutual learning and capacity building measures.
In order to measure the impact of these support services, LSE Enterprise ran a baseline survey prior to the implementation of the project. The surveys aimed to measure the nature, extent and level of awareness of inclusive education and their impact on the project activities, and to determine how the understanding of inclusion in education across the region has altered. To this end, the LSE Enterprise team created an index for inclusion for each school, comprising four dimensions: inclusive practices for entry to school; inclusion within the school; inclusive teaching and practice; and community engagement.
The report revealed a wealth of information and avenues for further investigation. Firstly, the overall score of the index of inclusion across all the schools in the project is 3.66 on a 1 to 5 scale, demonstrating significant scope for improvement and hence reinforcing the rationale for the Council of Europe’s current project.
Secondly, primary schools are more inclusive than secondary schools. This decreasing inclusiveness as students progress through the system deserves further investigation by policy-makers and researchers.
Thirdly, a stark difference in perception was found between ‘internal’ (eg teachers, principals) and ‘external’ (eg students, parents) stakeholders. On the whole, teachers had a much higher perception of inclusiveness in their schools than students and parents.
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