Mokinių, turinčių specialiųjų poreikių, iššūkiai integruoto ugdymo paradigmai Lietuvoje

Abstract

State Education Strategy for the Year 2003-2012 of the Republic of Lithuania (2003) highlights three priority areas: 1) eSociety, 2) secure society, 3) competitive economy. By announcing the above-mentioned strategy, the State obligates education to assist the State in implementing the strategic goals. The following situation analysis is based on two of them: the third one, namely, 'to nurture a solidary civic society', and the eight one, namely, 'to reduce social separation and poverty in essence. According to the data of municipalities, there were 580 259 pupils in Lithuania in the school year 2005-2006. 10 per cent of the pupils (58 025) have special needs of varied degree. 15 667 of them, which makes 2,7 per cent of the total number of Lithuanian pupils, have disabilities that provide big or very big special needs. According to the data of the Lithuanian Ministry of Education and Science, 90,4 percent of pupils with special needs attend ordinary secondary schools with full or partial integration applied. The paradigm of integrated education defines a complex socio-pedagogical phenomenon including interpersonal relationships between the educators and die educated, educational content and educational environment; therefore, the whole educational reality must be considered when talking about the education quality of heterogeneous groups. Some scientific research carried out in Lithuania that look into the quality of the organization of integrated education, cause worry and concern. Heterogeneous communities with normally developing pupils and those with special needs learning together create favourable conditions to ground interpersonal relationships on the solidarity and responsibility of dieir members. One's otherness is perceived as uniqueness in such communities, able to enrich the entire community with new experience [2; 30]