Special needs: politicians should check the evidence before making claims about inclusion
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 30 June 2017
Rob Webster.
Last week, a video of controversial comments made in the Australian Parliament about pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provoked international headlines. Voice wavering and clumsily tripping over her words, Senator Pauline Hanson unmistakably suggested that “we need to get rid of these people” from mainstream classrooms, because their presence “held back” others:
“Most of the time the teacher spends so much time on them, they forget about the child who is straining at the bit and wants to go ahead in leaps and bounds in their education”.
Educators, researchers, advocates and parents of children with (more…)