It didn't take long for her to respond! In a written answer published yesterday, as Minister of State for Children and Families, she said:
We will reform the school system so that children with special educational needs and disabilities get the best possible support. We will halt the unnecessary closure of special schools, improve diagnostic assessment for schoolchildren, and remove the bias towards inclusion. We have introduced legislation to make it possible, for the first time, for special schools to become academies. We are committed to offering special schools the additional freedoms that we are giving mainstream schools.
So it seems that she is going all the way with academies that she opposed back in 2007 and with 'free schools' that she dismissed as a 'shambles' during the General Election campaign. Added to that she appears to be suggesting that children with special needs and disabilities should not be integrated into mainstream schools.Umph!
Oh dear! Sarah Teather is destined to lose her seat at the next election (as are most of the LibDems). She used to be really commendable, but now as most LibDems are as a result of power, she is corrupt.
ReplyDeleteFree Schools allow for the promotion of private interests through the backdoor, and all it will do is increase educational inequality.
There is no bias towards inclusion, instead, there is a bias against it. I would go further than arguing disabled people should be integrated, as they need to be included - the schools and environment needs to change so that disabled people are not segregated from areas where they should not be isolated from.