The aims of the group are:
To establish the legal right of children with special educational needs to mainstream education with appropriate adjustment and support.
To promote entitlement to inclusive education as a civil rights issue.
To gather and spread information about good practice in inclusive education, both in Scotland and internationally.
To help schools, parents, children and communities to learn together how to achieve and sustain inclusive schools for all.
WHY INCLUSION MATTERS
A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE
The Equity Group believes that inclusive education is a matter of principle. We think that disabled children should have the same choices in education as non-disabled children. This is not the case for thousands of children in Scotland.
INCLUSIVE SCHOOLS ARE BETTER SCHOOLS
We believe that schools which are able to include disabled children are also better at including all children. All children are different, and all children should be able to expect that their school values them as an individuals and builds on their strengths.
ALL CHILDREN BENEFIT
We believe that non-disabled children can benefit in many ways from having disabled children in the class with them.
We believe that disabled children do at least as well academically and better socially by being included in regular classes in mainstream schools, and we do not believe that their presence impedes the learning of other children. (We are after all talking about one additional child in one in four classes).
BETTER PROSPECTS
We believe that an inclusive school system will help disabled young people make more friends and will improve their prospects of finding work.
IMPROVING THE CURRICULUM
We believe that all the special skills and resources which special schools now offer can be provided cost-effectively in ordinary schools, and that ordinary schools can and do offer a much broader social and academic curriculum than special schools.
ALL CHILDREN HAVE EQUAL VALUE
Fundamentally, we believe that inclusive education is about recognising children as having equal rights and being of equal value. This should be a basic starting-point for educational and social policy in a modern society.
