16 September 2003

:: NEWS ::

2500 children with disabilities do not attend school

2002 news

by Neli Cholashka, Sega daily

According to official statistics of the social ministry, some 2500 children with disabilities of school age do not attend school. Unofficially, their number may be twice as high. This is what Kapka Panayotova, executive director of the Centre for Independent Living, says.

The non-governmental organisation brought kids in wheelschairs and other disabilities from all over the country to the Ministry of Education. These children do not attend school, but they want to study together with healthy kids. The idea of the event was to remind the education minister Igor Damjanov about their existence on the first day of school in Bulgaria - 15 September. Only the deputy minister in charge of higher education however was there to meet them.

New by-laws of the Ministry of Education provide for integrated education of children with disabilities in the schools, as well as for the integration of children with special needs in mainstream kindergartens, stressed Peshka Korkinova from the Ministry's Department of Integration of Children with Specific Educational Needs.

Miroslav Dimitrov, father of a disabled child, however commented that although the new provisions and by-laws are in place, there are no trained specialists and prepared methodologies for work with these children.

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