How inclusion succeeds

When Sophie comes to school, there are several carers looking after her. There is, of course, the teacher, who she can ask questions. But there is also usually a special needs teacher sitting next to Sophie. He or she reminds her to stay on task or explains things to her again that she hasn't understood(see the report «I want to stay on task»).

Sophie is entitled to this special care. She has a recognised «special educational need». Because Sophie has Down's syndrome , she finds it more difficult than most pupils to understand content and concentrate for long periods of time.

In inclusive school classes, pupils with certain «functional disorders» are taught together with normally gifted mainstream pupils. These include children with a disability, a learning disability, a low IQ, autism, ADHD or a behavioural disorder. Until a few years ago, these pupils in Switzerland were mainly taught in special schools or in special small classes in mainstream schools.

In inclusive school classes, pupils with certain «functional disorders» are taught together with normally gifted mainstream pupils. These include children with a disability, a learning disability, a low IQ, autism, ADHD or a behavioural disorder. Until a few years ago, these pupils in Switzerland were mainly taught in special schools or in special small classes in mainstream schools.

Learning together with different learning objectives

While special schools continue to exist, small classes have now been abolished in almost all cantons. This is a step away from a segregated school model towards an integrated one. One reason for this is the legal provisions in Switzerland. Although parents cannot yet sue for a place in a mainstream school, several legal texts state that integration should be prioritised whenever possible. Since 2004, the cantons have been obliged by the Disability Equality Act to promote the integration of pupils with «special educational needs».

The cantons' primary school laws, which were passed by the electorate, also provide for integration. Last May, Switzerland became the 144th of 193 UN member states to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This states that disabled people must have equal access to an inclusive, high-quality school system. Learning should take place together, albeit with different learning objectives in some cases.

How well the UN Convention has been implemented so far will be analysed this year. «The burden of proof has been reversed,» says Professor Peter Lienhard from the Intercantonal University for Special Needs Education in Zurich, summarising the situation in Switzerland. «In the past, parents had to prove that their child was eligible for education in a mainstream school, but now the school has to prove that this is not possible.»

Diversity as a strength

Behind the UN Convention is the ideology of inclusion: according to this, it is no longer the children who are to be tested to see whether they are suitable for the standardised school system, but the schools that have to adapt to the diversity of the children.

Inclusion recognises all pupils as individuals with their own learning needs and strengths. Pupils with disabilities no longer stand out, they simply have a different profile of strengths. Inclusion therefore goes a whole step further than integration. With integration, it is still clearly defined - usually through the diagnosis of a functional disorder - who is the norm and who is to be integrated. Inclusion therefore requires a different way of thinking that sees diversity as a strength, not a problem.

Inclusion means that it is not the child that has to adapt to the school, but the school to the needs of the children.

But a school system, indeed an entire society, does not change overnight. For this reason, Swiss school practice today mainly favours integration - as a preliminary stage for inclusion, so to speak. This means that children with a certain diagnosis from the school psychology service are given measures to compensate for their disadvantage.

For example, technical aids, remedial lessons, easier tasks, the opportunity to take an oral exam or support from a curative or special needs teacher. In most cantons, all classes are entitled to a basic level of special educational support - and this becomes greater the more integrated children attend the respective class.

Integration at school means moving away from the stigma of small classes

There are now numerous studies that show that the learning progress of children with learning and performance difficulties is greater in inclusive classes than in separate settings. However, this is not the only reason why small classes no longer exist in most cantons today. It also has to do with the stigma associated with them.

Urs Haeberlin, former director of the Institute for Special Needs Education at the University of Fribourg and head of many integration research projects, has observed that fewer and fewer Swiss children have been educated in small classes since 1990. In many places, they became a catch-all for children from educationally disadvantaged immigrant households as well as pupils with behavioural problems and children from difficult family backgrounds. This also led to the problems that many children had to struggle with after leaving school.

A Swiss longitudinal study from 2011 showed that many weak pupils attend bridging programmes after leaving school. However, in the second and third year after graduation, many more weak students from integrative regular classes find access to an apprenticeship. Pupils from small classes, on the other hand, are more likely to fall by the wayside - their reputation in training companies is poor.

More and more special needs pupils?

But what happens to difficult pupils without a diagnosis? Where do they end up when small classes are closed? Last autumn, the media reported an «explosive increase in the number of special needs pupils» - more than ever before. The assumption was made that a particularly high number of pupils were simply being diagnosed so that schools would receive more funding and staff.

Beat Zemp, President of the Swiss Teachers' Association (LCH), relativised in an interview with the internet portal «Watson» that the figures cannot be compared without further ado: «The fact that these small classes have been abolished and most of the pupils concerned have been integrated into mainstream classes automatically increases the number of so-called integrated special needs pupils in the statistics.»

In addition, the Swiss Department of Education has only had a standardised and cross-cantonal assessment procedure since 2014. This sets out criteria that show who is a special needs pupil and which measures are appropriate.

In principle, however, the «education principle» applies today, no longer the «insurance principle» that applied before the IV withdrew from funding special education, according to Peter Lienhard.

Inclusion is a topic of fear among parents

This means: «We look at what the child needs in order to achieve their educational goal. Not so much what disorder it has.» And this is where the underachieving children without a clearly diagnosed disability come into play again. Some of them also need help to fulfil their potential.

A practical example: in the 4i class at Leonhard secondary school in Basel, remedial teachers also keep an eye on weak pupils or pupils with behavioural problems who do not have a medical or psychological certificate. For example, a girl from Japan who only moved to Switzerland a few weeks ago.

It seems to be normally gifted, but only speaks English. Or a girl from a migrant background who is very insecure and doesn't dare to make mistakes. The remedial teachers also focus on them and work with them to draw up personalised learning goals and support plans.

The girl from Japan also receives remedial lessons in «German as a second language». According to Peter Lienhard, the fact that the remedial teachers are not only there for pupils with integration status like Sophie, but also have time for these cases, is due to the fact that the teachers and remedial teachers at Sek Leonhard intelligently combine the classes and subjects and thus also pool their own resources.

«That's very clever - that's exactly how you have to do it for integration to work,» says Lienhard. Because one thing is clear: integration not only demands a lot from special needs teachers, but also from teachers and parents.

«There is uncertainty among many people - inclusion is a topic of fear,» says Bettina Ledergerber, Head of Communications at Pro Infirmis. The specialist organisation primarily advises parents of children with disabilities, but also teachers and authorities. It acts as a translator for the technical jargon and helps with claiming entitlements. Ledergerber describes the Swiss school system as «undergoing radical change».

Children with learning and performance difficulties make greater progress in mainstream classes.

The vision of inclusion, seeing the diversity of people as a strength, is a tall order. And its implementation is also at the mercy of constant media scrutiny. Lack of training, scarce resources And the media repeatedly find teachers complaining that normal lessons with such diverse pupils are hardly possible. Many teachers lack the appropriate training in dealing with integrated pupils.

Modules for integration and special needs education have only been part of teacher training at teacher training colleges for a few years. However, older teachers in particular have to retrain - if there is the money and time to do so. When the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper gave overburdened teachers a chance to have their say in an article last autumn, 73.6 per cent of online readers answered the question «Do special needs pupils belong in mainstream classes?» in the negative.

Some schools have too few resources

It is particularly the parents of normally gifted mainstream pupils who fear that children will be held back in their development if weak pupils and special needs pupils are taught in the same class. In the «Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik», Urs Strasser shows the effect of inclusive settings on mainstream pupils: they develop better social skills, are not held back and, contrary to fears, even make particularly good progress.

In Germany, the Bertelsmann Foundation surveyed parents in 2015 and revealed that they give inclusive schools good marks across the board (see box). Special needs teacher Martin Gürtler from Sek Leonhard is also convinced that the stronger children in particular benefit from the inclusive system because, on the one hand, they really experience the diversity of society and, on the other, they also enjoy more intensive support.

So if integration or the long-term goal of inclusion brings benefits for everyone - why do they so often meet with resistance? «Some schools don't have enough resources, politicians often panic about this complex issue, and parents are so concerned about their child's success at school that they don't want to get involved in experiments,» summarises Lienhard.

Integration at any price?

Nevertheless, integration or inclusion is «not only not acceptable to the majority, but also not always sensible», emphasises Lienhard. It is important to consider the individual case. The severely autistic child, for example, who panics in large groups, is probably better off in a special school with small groups, one-to-one support and psychiatrists than in a mainstream school.

And there are pupils whose behavioural disorder makes lessons impossible for everyone else. It can also happen that pupils with a severe hearing or visual impairment develop strategies in mainstream schools so that nobody realises that they don't understand anything. But: «It doesn't just depend on the child whether integration is successful,» emphasises Lienhard. He is often asked for which disabilities integration makes sense and then answers with a mind map.

This shows: The pupil is only one piece of the puzzle. For integration and inclusion to succeed in schools, parents, teachers, school management and school authorities must work together, rooms and resources must be available and external counselling and training must be provided. «If, for example, the parents of all the other pupils are against a child with a disability being included in the class, this child will have a very difficult time,» says Lienhard.

Language lessons, individual support plans, larger handwriting - there are many different aids available.

Inclusion does not necessarily mean that everything is done together and measured by the same standards. For example, special needs pupils in inclusive settings only receive grades if their performance is truly comparable to that of mainstream pupils. Their individual learning objectives - for example, «adding up in the tens» - and a description of how well they have achieved them are then included in the report card.

It is also not stipulated anywhere that pupils must always be taught in the same room. For example, when Sophie and the other children with integration status from 4i at Sek Leonhard have to prepare a presentation, the special needs teachers take them to the special needs room. Here they are allowed to get loud, and the task can be explained again and again without disturbing the other pupils. The result is then presented to the whole class.

In addition, the 4i timetable leaves enough room for the pupils' personal weekly schedule - and it can happen that a pupil adds 5 and 7 together on the slide rule while her classmate at the next table calculates the distance between two cities using a map.

For Christian Liesen, professor at the Intercantonal University for Special Needs Education, inclusion is about «imagining how educational goals can be achieved without limiting one's imagination». According to Liesen, it is crucial to realise «that there are always several reasonable ways to reach the goal».

Editorial collaboration: Martina Proprenter