Minister Cataldo visits Calbuco to learn about innovative experience in inclusive education – Ministry of Education

Tuesday December 5, 2023

The Secretary of State visited the Multisensory Stimulation Room (SEM) of the San José Rural School in Calbuco, where he highlighted that this space “allows for deepening learning.”

The Mineduc authority met with Senator Fidel Espinoza, with mayors and councilors from other communes in the territory, interested in knowing more details about this inclusive education space.

“What Calbuco is doing today is a pioneering step in a process that has to become much more widespread,” said Minister Nicolás Cataldo, during his tour of said commune, in the Los Lagos Region.

The Secretary of State visited the Multisensory Stimulation Room (SEM) of the San José de Rural School Calbuco, in the Caicaén sector, which is a space for curricular support and therapeutic work for students, through a digital library with 3D videos that allow them to discover places in the world, activities associated with logical thinking, and light games for stimulation. The room can be used by groups or to work with children individually.

After the visit, the Minister Cataldo He highlighted that this resource “is not only available for the particular educational establishment, but for the entire community, for other students who have Autism Spectrum Disorder or some other problem that affects their development.”

Along these lines, the authority highlighted that this inclusive education space “allows us to deepen learning and address a situation that affects so many Chileans, and that is often poorly understood and insufficiently addressed.”

For his part, the Mayor Juan Calbucoy He highlighted that “for a commune with less than 50,000 inhabitants, this is a wonderful experience and it fills us with satisfaction to share this type of initiatives with Minister Cataldo and also with colleagues, mayors and councilors, who are present today in the commune of “Calbuco.”

The regional governor, Patricio Vallespín, also participated in the visit to the establishment; the regional presidential delegate, Giovanna Moreira, Senator Fidel Espinoza and the Seremi of Education, Daniela Carvacho.

Inclusive education: Multisensory Stimulation Room

The Multisensory Stimulation Room (SEM) of the San José Rural School was inaugurated in August 2022, with the objective of providing inclusive educational spaces that allow the growth and comprehensive development of the students and the entire educational community. It is the first space of its kind in Los Lagos and had an investment of $46 million.

The SEM serves children from this and other establishments, with whom six of the seven senses work: vision, smell, hearing, touch, proprioperception (ability to feel the relative position of body parts) and vestibular sense (balance and spatial control). .

The experience developed by the San José Rural School was addressed in the “Meeting for Inclusive Education: Multisensory Rooms for Our Region”, developed in the Caicaén Municipal Park and organized by the Municipality of Calbuco. Regional authorities and authorities from different communes in the Los Lagos region also participated in the activity.

It should be noted that the San José Rural School, supported by the DAEM of Calbuco, was inaugurated in 1909. It has an enrollment of 239 students, from the first transition level to 8th grade.

Visit to Bernardo O’Higgins School

Minister Cataldo’s agenda included a visit to the Bernardo O’Higgins School, where he shared with the educational community. The Secretary of State highlighted that “we see a strong community that has managed to overcome the problems that affected it a few years ago and that also managed to break the enrollment barrier it had, and today it is growing as an educational project.”

In this context, the Mineduc authority maintained that “for this reason, we impose on ourselves, together with the mayor and the Regional Government, the challenge of financing this project so long awaited by the educational community, which is to have a new establishment.”

The Bernardo O’Higgins School, created in 1980, in a social headquarters in the area, has an enrollment of 145 students, distributed from the first transition level to 8th grade. This school stands out for its extracurricular activities focused mainly on the development of science with care for the environment and sustainability.