Bucharest, 27 April, 2016. The European Center for the Rights of Children with Disabilities (CEDCD) expresses its deepest concern over the manner in which the Ministry of National Education and Scientific Research (MNESR) understands to distort the general public’s and parents opinion on the issue of children with special educational needs and disabilities.
On the evening of April 26, 2016, MNESR published on the official website of the institution the Draft Government Decision regarding the county allocation of amounts approved by law for financing the rights of children/pupils/youth with special educational needs integrated in mass schooling, as well as the methodology of allocating these amounts to mass school units for the year 2016[1].
The explanatory memorandum attached to the Draft Government Decision informs us that:
“Through the educational policies it promotes and by allocating the necessary financial resources, the Romanian Government has set out to efficiently ensure equal access to education for all citizens of this country, regardless of their ethnic origin, gender, confession, residence area or socio-economic situation. Furthermore, considering the principle of social inclusion, the state supports ante-preschool and preschool children, pupils and students with social problems and needs, as well as those with special educational needs.”
Although MNESR announces that the Draft Government Decision is a measure of inclusion for children with SEND, it is, in fact, only recognizing and allocating the amounts of money for food allowances in school for children with SEND already established and regulated in 2011 by OMECS 5574 and 5036, but which were never ensured for the children.
Furthermore, the Draft Government Decision does not offer any solution for the 5 years in which children with SEND where prejudiced of this right, but rather establishes the obligation for parents to “demand, upon written request, the granting of such rights within 10 days from the date of entry into force of this Decision”.
It is worth pointing out that this daily allowance established by OMECS 5574/2011 for children with SEND enrolled in schooling should have been allocated from the budgets of County Councils, through the intermediary of schools, and amounts to approximately 13 – 15 lei per day.
We want to stress that this modest amount allocated for children with disabilities in educational establishments is NOT a measure of INCLUSION, as MNESR justifies in a tendentious manner, but rather a disputable form of social assistance.
Consequently, in the context in which approximately 20.000 children with disabilities are NOT enrolled in a form of educational establishment, they do not benefit of the most elementary support measures (adapted curriculum, support teacher, assistive technologies) and accessibility (see the case of Ştefan[2]), MNESR proposes the payment of a modest food allowance as an inclusion measure, a right already acquired and not honored in 2011.
Although CEDCD launched the administrative procedure for claiming the right to food allowance in over 260 cases in the last year, we do not consider this to be a measure of educational inclusion, but rather a form of assistance for these children.
“I believe that, in the context of the crisis of children with disabilities, segregated, discriminated and excluded from education, the distortion of truth by MNESR and presenting this derisory allowance, which is an already acquired right, as an inclusion method in education is undoubtedly a defiance of the over 70.000 children with disabilities and their parents. Children with disabilities need trained teachers, a reduction in the number of pupils in the classroom, an efficient adaptation of the curriculum, accessibility and support teachers”, states Mădălina TURZA, CEDCD president.
[1] http://www.edu.ro/index.php/articles/24263
[2] https://www.cedcd.ro/scrisoare-de-pozitie-cedcd-mental-disability-advocacy-centre/
Contact person:
Madalina TURZA
Email: madalina.turza@cedcd.ro
Mob: 0737545955
Fax: 021/7952465
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