On the occasion of Elementary Education Day on January 24, 2024, Diakonie calls for more inclusion right from the start.
“Parents of children with disabilities feel completely alone in Austria,” criticizes Diakonie director Maria Katharina Moser. In Vienna alone, experts say there are around 900 children with disabilities who are waiting for an inclusive kindergarten or playroom place. One in three children does not get a suitable place in a Viennese institution.
“This brings a long-term disadvantage both for the children, because they have no chance of early education and development opportunities among their peers, and for the families, who can only go to work to a limited extent or not at all due to the lack of opportunities,” Moser continued.
In addition, it does not comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, by signing which Austria committed itself to implementing an inclusive education system at all levels, nor with the National Disability Action Plan (NAP II), which was decided by the Council of Ministers and aims to improve the situation in the area of inclusive education elementary education provides.
“If you start from the principle that all children – those with and those without disabilities – benefit from lived inclusion because learning from each other in an inclusive community strengthens the social and intellectual skills of everyone, it is completely incomprehensible that politicians hardly do anything here Attention is on this topic,” says the Diakonie director.
Missing data shows that the topic is not receiving due attention
A look at the data from Statistics Austria shows: In 2022/2023 there were a total of around 7,000 toddler care facilities and kindergartens in Austria. Just over 30% of these are private institutions. However, there is a big gap in the existing data when it comes to special offers for children with disabilities: It is not clear how many of these facilities offer integration or inclusion places. “We are missing a valid picture of the situation here,” emphasizes Moser, and this also shows that the topic of inclusion from kindergarten onwards in Austria lacks the attention it deserves. Diakonie therefore demands that “comprehensive data on the situation of children with disabilities in elementary education be collected and made accessible throughout Austria.”
This is how inclusion can work in elementary education
Until recently, in some federal states there was no provision for private, non-profit organizations to even offer so-called “integration groups” in kindergartens. Since this has been possible, Diakonie has been offering places for children with disabilities in its elementary educational institutions in Upper Austria, Salzburg, Carinthia and Vienna.
“Of course the waiting lists are long here too and the offer is far from sufficient, but the administrative hurdles to opening such a group and finding the right staff are also huge,” says Moser, describing the situation. There is therefore an urgent need for more support for private kindergarten providers to implement inclusion in elementary education. In addition, an expansion of the training offering for inclusive elementary educators is urgently needed. There are currently more interested parties than training places.
Education is a human right and must be worth something to us
Education is a human right, and a paradigm shift is needed that no longer leaves out the area of (inclusive) elementary education, but instead provides appropriate resources so that all children are granted this right – right from the start. According to Diakonie, this requires (1) the expansion of inclusive offerings, (2) the right to a barrier-free kindergarten place even in the last year of kindergarten, (3) nationwide uniform framework conditions for elementary education, (4) a care ratio that corresponds to scientific standards, and (5) Measures to address the severe staff shortage.
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Petition “Elementary education is worth MORE”
Source: Diakonie broadcast from January 22, 2024
2024-01-22 18:41:29
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