6.6 Social inclusion through education and training
The 2019-2025 Inclusive Education Strategy sets the directions for further development of the education of children with special education needs. It continues to pursue the implementation of the measures included in the 2014-2018 Inclusive Education Strategy and relies on the binding international principles, standards and recommendations of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Strategy covers the principles, theoretical and practical achievements in developing the potentials of both the children with special needs in education and the society at large. It assumes a human rights-based approach, aiming to prevent, as well as remove obstacles to participation and achievements during education for all children.
Educational support
The target groups identified in official documents (e.g. learners with a migrant background, learners affected by physical or cognitive disabilities, learners belonging to minorities or disadvantaged communities, NEETs…)
According to the Law on Education of Children with Special Educational Needs ("Official Gazette of the Montenegro" No. 80/2004, "Official Gazette of Montenegro" No. 45/2010, 47/2017, 145/21), the term 'children with special educational needs' includes children with disabilities, children with developmental, physical, intellectual, sensory disabilities, children with combined disabilities and autism spectrum disorders, developmental difficulties, speech-language difficulties, behavioral disorders, children with severe chronic diseases, children with long-term illnesses and other children with learning difficulties and other difficulties caused by emotional, social, linguistic and cultural barriers.
Policies in the context of formal education
The Education of SEN children is regulated by the Law on education for SEN children (“Official Gazette of Montenegro”, no. 45/2010, 47/2017, 145/2021).
The Montenegrin education system for SEN children sets inclusive education as it first choice and imperative in regular schools, as illustrated by a continuous growth trend.
The social model based on human rights (proposed by CRPWD) is to be actively promoted and implemented with the emphasis on society adjusting to the person and removing obstacles in the environment, attitudes, and services, rather than disabilities or difficulties in the development of the child, by providing quality and continuous support at all levels with the aim to achieve educational outcomes and individual potentials.
Commissions for the orientation in education system of SEN children were formed in local communities. They consist of a pediatrician, psychologist, social worker, and defectologist (special educators and rehabilitators). The commissions for the orientation propose a programme, expert help and staffing, material and other conditions for each SEN child.
Individual Development-Education Programmes serve as the basis for working with children with special needs in education (IDEP). Kindergartens and schools develop IDEPs for each child, setting out the educational and developmental objectives to be achieved.
In order to facilitate a smooth transition between educational levels for children with special educational needs, a program for transition from kindergarten to elementary school was created. Individual Transition Plan-1 (ITP-1) serves to facilitate the transition of students with special needs in education from elementary to secondary school. Individual Transition Plan-2 (ITP-2), which links education and employment, was designed and adopted to facilitate students’ transition to the labour market. ITP-3 is oriented toward tertiary education.
In order to enable SEN children to adopt the education programme gradually and finish their education, to the best of their abilities, modularised education programmes based on vocational qualifications for different education levels are of special importance. This allows for attainment of 2nd and 3rd degree qualifications under the 4th degree programme, so that a child that leaves the education process earlier, as further pursuit of the education programme becomes too demanding for them, can obtain a 2nd or 3rd degree certificate, depending on what the specifications of a particular programme are, enabling them to enter the labour market. By completing a certain number of modules, a child can obtain: 1) assistant qualification (2nd degree), 2) craftsperson qualification (3rd degree), and 3) by completing several more modules, technician qualification (4th degree).
Special institutions have been reformed into resource centers. They play a significant role in the education of SEN children. There are three resource centers in Montenegro: Resource center “Dr Peruta Ivanovic” for the Speech and Hearing disabilities in Kotor, Resource Centre for children with Intellectual Disabilities and Autism “1.jun” Podgorica, JU Resource Centre for Children and Young People “Podgorica” for Physical and Sight disabilities. They provide support to inclusive education through: counselling and expert services, training for teachers and teaching assistants in working with SEN children, use of sign language; preparing, adjusting, making of and training in the use of special textbooks (in Braille, in Daisy format ) and other specialized teaching aids. SEN children are sent to resource centers for education when it is established that that is the best solution for them and in their best interest (if they have the most severe and highly challenging combined disabilities).
Seven mainstream schools formed integrated classes, where children with special needs in education also attend some lessons together with their peers from mainstream classes. Schools with integrated classes were identified as Resource Centre satellite units.
The Bureau for Education organizes and coordinates the work of the mobile teams, which consist of psychologists, special education specialists and rehabilitators from the Resource Centres and mainstream schools.
Schools hire teaching assistants to help the children with special needs in education, as technical support during the academic year.
There are also other Programs/projects/initiatives – either directly organized or funded by public authorities – helping young people overcome obstacles to their participation in non-formal and informal learning and youth work (e.g. dedicated learning materials; subsidies for acquiring technological equipment facilitating access to learning to young people with special needs; training of teaching professionals, educators and youth workers…)
Ten textbooks in DAISY format have been produced (six mother tongue readers and four history textbooks), as a high-quality tool enabling quality teaching and learning for all children, particularly for children with special educational needs.
C-board is application that are in using fort he non-verbal or children with communication challenges.
In addition, school-level non-discrimination activities were created envisaging, among other initiatives, that A Day of Non – Discrimination is marked at the school level once in an academic year.
Together with the NGO Special Olympics, kindergartens implement the Young Athletes Programme as well as the Youth Program, with the activities gathering children with and without intellectual disabilities.
Public funding is devoted to the measures of educational support described. The Education of SEN children is part of a unified education system and an activity of public interest. It is important to mention that the efforts of the Ministry of Education and the Government of Montenegro, as well as those of the civil society sector, were appreciated and supported by international organizations, first of all UNICEF, as well as Save the Children and the Council of Europe.