Disabled: Meritocrazia Italia, ‘a school accessible to all’

“Despite the considerable progress made thanks to the useful regulatory interventions of the past, the objective of equal access to education has not yet been fully achieved. on 6 September, Istat noted that only less than one school building out of three is free of physical-structural barriers that limit physical access to people with disabilities. And there are wide territorial differences: in the North, the share of accessible schools it is close to 38%, in the South 27.4% “. Thus in a note Meritocrazia Italia. “In the Istat Report – continues Meritocrazia Italia – which surveys the school inclusion of pupils with disAbility, it is noted that in the academic year 2019-2020 the number of pupils with disabilities attending Italian schools increased (+13,000, for a total of about 300,000 pupils, 3.5% of those enrolled), together with that of pupils with other special educational needs (+60,000, 11% of those enrolled in secondary school and 6.5% in lower primary school We also read that 37% of support teachers do not have specific training, because the demand exceeds the supply and the number of specialized teachers does not cover the needs, constantly increasing by about 6% every year, and that just over 57,000 is the number of autonomy and communication assistants who work alongside teachers for support “.” Inequalities prevail over excellence, obscuring them – observes Meritocrazia Italia -, and negatively influencing and slowing down every action concrete innovation in response to the needs identified and claimed by those who, with confidence in the institutions, hope for a better future for all. Immediate and transversal actions are needed at the national level, starting from: the activation of intensive specialization courses, the qualification of teachers, aiming at increasing the non-exhaustive number of chairs in derogation; from the advance of the appointment of teachers at the end of June, in order to be able to start the school year by guaranteeing educational and didactic continuity for pupils; from the increase in the funds of local authorities which are indispensable for guaranteeing an adequate numerical ratio between students with disabilities and assistants in autonomy and communication; from the establishment of funds and the composition of programs for the removal of architectural barriers present in all school buildings, regardless of the needs of the moment; by an acceleration of the digitization process, increasing the operational and technological tools present in each school necessary to guarantee autonomy and communication to all students with different abilities; by personalized programs, tailored to specific difficulties, to facilitate the reception and continuous integration of disabled students destined for the class group they belong to, the teachers and the entire staff working within the School “, concludes Meritocrazia Italia.