Educational Policy for Students with Disabilities in the Philippines
A fourth of the parents of disabled children in the Philippines are not satisfied with the quality of the education that their children receive, and the Philippines are not known for encouraging complaints. There is a definite divide between the treatment of the local-born and raised citizen of the Philippines and those of foreigners. Needless to say, the double-standard between native-born Philippine students and foreign-born students does not produce differences on the level of those of the disabled students. The curriculum is openly biased toward their way of life and discourages change (Belarga & Nakamura, p. 295).
Any disabled students attending Philippino schools are provided inferior curriculum and teachers, essentially the left-over educational resources. The teachers that are available to students with disabilities are not required to and often do not feel obligated to provide a differentiated lesson plan according to the strengths and weaknesses of their class (Belarga & Nakamura, 295).
Educational Policy for Students with Disabilities in Ukraine
In Ukraine, almost two percent of students are considered disabled. Typically, they were expected to attend vocational schools after the completion of High School and thus were socially limited and/or censured for their choices. Ukraine has only one university accepting students with disabilities and, despite this enrollment perk, only twenty percent of the adults in attendance have been classified as being disabled. What’s more, only fifty-eight percent of the degreed educators of the University of Ukraine have had personal experience with disabled students. When a survey was provided, the faculty answered open-ended questions with a desire to call in professionals working with disabilities or create a special needs library as their contribution to students with disabilities. Despite their good intentions, the majority of the professors preferred to delegate most of these aiding measures to individuals that they perceived to be more qualified- rather than undergo continuing education training on the subject (Raver-Lampman, pp. 43-50).
That is not to say that Ukraine has stood idly by while students with disabilities have gone without any special needs accommodations. Informal measures were taken by individual people on an individual, case-by-case basis and are not the norm. Much as in the Philippines, “In general, public attitudes toward differences in Ukraine are negative and isolating”.
Most of the students who are classified as disabled have hearing impairments, and yet the use of Ukrainian Sign Language is so rare as to be discounted altogether. In 1995, there was a Ukrainian law passed which was intended to guarantee Human Rights- but which did not extend to public or post-secondary schools. Perhaps even more telling, about thirty percent of the open-ended answers of the Ukrainian survey were omitted (Raver-Lampman, pp. 43-50).
Educational Policy for Students with Disabilities in China
However, not all foreign countries are so distant from the needs of disabled students. The Chinese government shows a rapid response and emotive action as it continues to push for the mainstreaming of Chinese Sign Language. Language is important in China especially, because they have recently been attributed to sociopolitical indicators for unity, as Standard Mandarin and Putonghua have been politically utilized there also. Consequently, the People’s Republic of China has embraced another opportunity to gain the faith of its people through the encouragement of unity (Lin, de Garia, & Chen-Pichler).
Family adaptation programs for a child with disabilities
Griffin, Guerin, Sharry, and Drumm (2010) conducted research before and after a twelve-week parent-training group. These parents were volunteers with either behavioral or developmental difficulties. Parent training has been statistically proven to “decrease conduct problems, increase prosocial behavior, reduce parental stress and improve parent-child interactions… reducing behavioral problems among children with developmental disabilities” (Griffin et.al, 2010, 280). Such programs should be based on real-world experience and include positive coping techniques and paramedical knowledge of the condition(s) affecting their child (281-282).
The above training has been shown to be effective. However, such results underestimate the value of familial interactions. As a combined approach to the evidence in favor of parent training and the common sense gaps in the influences weighing in, a suggested method would be the inclusion of as much of the family support system as is available for the training and the expansion of the scope to include the positive attributes of a reliable routine and (as much as possible) to include the child within the decision-making process of the family unit and establish supervised independence.
Works Cited
- Belarga, Oliver, and Yasuhide Nakamura. “A Study on Foreign Families with Children with Disabilities in Manila, Philippines: Challenges in Local Schools.” I nternational Journal of Learning 17.1 (2010): 293-298. Education Research Complete. EBSCO.
- Griffin, Claire, et al. “A multicentre controlled study of an early intervention parenting programme for young children with behavioural and developmental difficulties.” International Journal of Clinical Health & Psychology 10.2 (2010): 279-294. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO.
- Mien-Chun Lin, Christina, Barbara Gerner de Garcia, and Deborah Chen-Pichler. “Standardizing Chinese Sign Language for use in post-secondary education.” Current Issues in Language Planning 10.3 (2009): 327-337. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO.
- Raver-Lampman, Sharon A., and Kateryna Kolchenko. “Comparison of Perceptions of Inclusion Between University Instructors and Students with Disabilities in Ukraine.” Journal of the International Association of Special Education 8.1 (2007): 43-53. Education Research Complete. EBSCO.