DUSHANBE, October 7, 2015, Asia-Plus – A three-day workshop for representatives of Teachers’ Training Institutes of Tajikistan kicked off in Dushanbe today.

The workshop is organized under support of the Education Programs of the Branch Office of the International Organization of Open Society Institute – Assistance Foundation in Tajikistan and its main objective is in assisting to institutionalize an inclusive education curriculum for Tajikistan’s teachers’ training system.   

The basic thematic areas include modern trends in inclusive education development, individual curriculum as a mechanism of providing access to education process for children with special needs, and joint teaching process (professional development of teachers to ensure quality of inclusive education).

The workshop has reportedly brought together teachers and specialists involved in the system of teachers’ training and professional retraining of educators and higher education institutions.

We will recall that the Government of Tajikistan adopted the “National Concept on Inclusive Education for Children with Disabilities in the Republic of Tajikistan for 2011-2015” in 2011.  The goal of the National Concept on Inclusive Education is to create a national model for inclusion of people with disabilities into the general educational process. The concept has focused intervention in three areas: education, health care and social welfare.

Inclusion in the context of education is the practice, in which students with special educational needs spend most or all of their time with non-disabled students.  Implementation of this practice varies; schools can use it for selected students with mild to severe special needs.  Inclusive education differs from previously held notions of ‘integration’ and ‘mainstreaming’, which tended to be concerned principally with disability and ‘special educational needs’ and implied learners changing or becoming ‘ready for’ accommodation by the mainstream.  By contrast, inclusion is about the child’s right to participate and the school’s duty to accept the child.  Inclusion rejects the use of special schools or classrooms to separate students with disabilities from students without disabilities.  A premium is placed upon full participation by students with disabilities and upon respect for their social, civil, and educational rights.