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In China special education refers to education for the disabled. According to the National Survey on the Status of the Disabilities in 1987 China has 7,550,000 visually impaired in mainland China of which 181,000 are under 15 years old. How could China provide education services to such a large number of children in special schools for the blind ? The Golden Key Plan for Blind Children's Education was set up by non -government organization in 1987 and developed governmental program named The Integration Program for Visually Impaired in 1990 . That means that all of the schoolage visually impaired can attend a regular school in their home community. The visually impaired usually live at home and go to the same schools as their sighted brothers, sisters, and companion. In mountain area some visually impaired students live at school with their teachers because their parents cannot take them home every day. They study in the regular classroom with their regular teachers but receive a little extra help services from a special teacher.
Achievements and Implication
1. Governmental action
The State Education Commission
plays an important role in the development of education for visually impaired
children in China. The State Education Commission has proved to be of significance
in making regulations and policies for national development. The Procedure
on Developing Integration of Children with Special Needs (PDICSN) drafted
in 1994.
2. The role of local government
The local government has
made the detailed rules and regulations accordance with the PDICSN. In
this sense, the rules and regulations can put it into practice and implementation
of policy is more effective
3. Making full important
role of special school for the blind
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18 \h In-service teacher training
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18 \h Parental guidance and counseling
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18 \h Support service to regular classroom teaching procedures
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18 \h Consulting for administrators in their own provinces:
4. Making experiment in
some provinces
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18 \h Conducting survey on the status of school-age visually impaired;
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18 \h Training regular teachers;
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18 \h Setting up consulting center both county-level and township-level
for supporting the regular teachers
Major Problems
1. Giving too much responsibilities
to regular teachers
Integration means a range
of services provided to regular teachers and visually impaired students.
In china the regular classroom teachers have not gotten enough supports.
At present the primary schools' teachers already have a lot work to do.
In cities schools the teachers have 45-55 sighted students in one classroom,
in mountain area schools the teachers have to teach more than two grades
in the same classroom. Except as indicated above, now they have to take
the great responsibilities for educating visually impaired students. It
is difficult to make integration very successful if we only rely on them.
It is suggested to make the special school for the blind to play the important
role in integration ,strengthen guidance to classroom integration and provide
more assistance to integrated teachers in regular classroom.
2. Fund shortages
Integrated education for
visually impaired students in regular school is less cost than special
school education, but it doesn't mean integrated education don't need input.
In order to promote the development of integration at the beginning of
the program we overemphasized that integrated education is less cost .
As a result, only some of integrated school in poor area have got the support
of teaching aids, studying tools and equipment. The shortage of teaching
conditions has affected the quality improvement of integration.
3. Low level for regular
classroom teacher training
Most of regular classroom
teachers in poor areas were only got on job training two or three weeks
. Because of their lack of knowledge and skills they could not meet the
needs of visually impaired students. Now personnel training is and will
be a great concern in our country.
Suggestion for Future Development
1. Setting up low vision
students program
Partial vision students
should be integrated into regular school if they want to be.
At the beginning of integration
program low vision students in China could not be enrolled into regular
school if they want to learn printing words. The reason are as follows:
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18 \h The classroom teachers lack of instructional approaches in the use
of vision;
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18 \h The classroom teachers lack of education experiences and awareness
based on center of children
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18 \h The partial vision students need take more time to read and write
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18 \h The partial vision students have to have the same curriculum and
pass the same examination as their peers
In recent two years some
provinces try to set up integration program for partial vision students,
but we need to develop the program in whole country.
2. Change the function of
special school for the blind:
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18 \h Set up programs for multi-handicapped or deaf and blind students;
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18 \h Train integrating specialist who work with blind students and provide
other support to blind students in regular school, their parents and integrating
teachers;
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18 \h Provide vocation training for blind students who have finished compulsory
nine years education:
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18 \h Develop summer or winter vacation programs for blind or low vision
students who are integrated in regular schools in order to provide them
courses in orientation and mobility, social skills, daily living skills,
ect
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18 \h Provide consulting for administrators in their own provinces
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18 \h Conduct research in teaching methods, design teaching tools and curricular,
organizing seminar for special education teachers and regular teachers
3. Adding special courses
In order to compensate defect
and develop the differing abilities of students with disabilities special
courses should be considered.
Generally speaking, educational
courses for children with visually impairment follow the same curricular
of general primary schools . In order to help children with disabilities
to transfer smoothly with an academic background appropriate to their abilities,
some special courses should be offered for students with visually impairment
, such as, orientation and mobility , daily living ,social practice activities,
vocational education, ect.
4. Adding recorded materials.
Supporting students who
are in integration programs by setting up recourse center or room where
record books which can be loan to individual students. These books can
be record by volunteer read or paying some sighted who have good reading
skills.
5. Providing support to
integration teachers.
Integration doesn't mean
"dumping" visually impairment students into regular classroom without providing
necessary services to them and their teachers. The key to successful integration
is to build in the services and necessary supports for the each program.
We have a long way to go to give necessary supports to regualr teachers.
6. Designing curriculum
more flexible.
In China the general school
curriculum is designed for normal students , all the students who are enrolled
in general schools are required to learn the same task, reach the same
level, pass the same exam , so the visually impaired students have to learn
the same content of the same curriculum in order to keep up with their
peers. Making curriculum more flexible is one of the problems which we
need to solve.