Reasonable priority for Special Education

Senior Educationist advices:

It was a saga of an itinerant teacher in the Department of Education who through determination, honesty and self-less sacrifices, rose to become an internationally renowned expert in Special Education.

His phenomenal career commenced as an itinerant teacher who for the first time in Sri Lanka, experimented with teaching blind children with their normal peers in the same class room. As it had become a model, Piyasena was invited to form a Unit for Special Education.

Since then he did not turn back on his journey illuminating the lives of thousands of children with special educational needs. In recognition of his contribution in the spheres of Special Education in Sri Lanka, he was awarded a Commonwealth Education Fellowship in 1971 and spent two fruitful years in U.K.

At the time, Special Education was something alien to Sri Lankan field of Education. Although there were special schools, the concept of Special Education, Integration was not known until 1970.

Mr.Piyasena(Chairperson) addressing the Asia Pacific Special Education seminar held in Japan in 1984

Children with ‘special needs’ intergrated into a regular classroom atmosphere

However, by 1970, the officials in the Department of Education realised the need for Special Education in Sri Lanka after the successful programme of Inclusive Education where students with Special needs such as blind, crippled and retarded students were given placement in regular schools and in the same class with ordinary students.

Upon success of the programme, it was applied throughout the island. The programme was highly successful as within first ten years, the programme has produced number of A/L qualified students with special needs and few years later, 10 totally blind students were able to enter the university.

By now, special methodologies and concepts have been developed to educate the Students with Special needs. One such method is integration where blind, crippled, partially hearing students were given placement in regular schools.

Sometimes if the students were not in a position to sit with their normal peers, they were educated in special units and as and when they improved their skills, the students were given placement in regular classes.

Another is mainstreaming where students with Special Needs were given direct placement in normal classes and an ordinary teacher teaches students together with a Special Teacher to educate children with Special needs.

Deriving experience from Sri Lankan experience, UNESCO developed a methodology known as Inclusive Education where normal class teachers cater to the needs of the handicapped students sitting in the normal class.

Piyasena is of the view that all the systems of Education, namely, Integration, Special Schools, mainstreaming and Inclusion should be continued to cater to the needs of the special students.

Special Students have been in existence for a long period of time and where the Special Students were segregated from other students. In regular schools, there are three systems; integrated units where handicapped children were given education in a separate unit on a temporary basis and Special Teachers take up the classes.

After improving their skills, the students were allowed to move into regular classes and the regular class teacher as well as Special Teacher used to help the students.

Under the mainstreaming, handicapped students who are not severely disabled were given placement in regular classes along with their normal peer with regular class teacher teaching them from time to time, A Special Teacher intervened to help the special students. Under inclusion, children with special needs were taught in regular classes by regular class teacher who also helps children with special needs.

Some of the books authored by Mr.Piyasena

It has been estimated that about 20-25 % of children are with special needs and these children will suffer as a result of lack of understanding of their needs. Even the gifted children are treated as Children with special needs. Special Education is required for developing talents and capabilities of gifted children. The educationists developed Special Education for gifted children in many other countries.

As an international expert on Special Education, Piyasena is of the view that all children with special needs should be included in the system of education and provide them with Special Education. By now, over hundred handicapped undergraduates are studying in the university system.

According to Piyasena, the officials in the Ministry of Education are trying to change the past systems without proper evaluation and re-introduce Inclusive Education in an ad hoc manner without a vision. He laments over the short-sighted decision on the part of officials in the Department of Education as the officials are trying to change the system without a vision.

At the initial stages, the principle obstacle was that the parents of the normal children opposed the idea of teaching children with Special needs in regular classes. For instance, a class commenced at Royal College for slow learners had to be closed down due to stiff opposition from the parents of normal children. Principals in certain schools in rural area opposed Especial Education.

Another obstacle was from the groups of persons in Special School with vested interests. As those people were getting foreign assistance, they opposed the idea of educating children with Special needs along with normal students in regular schools.

In recognising the merits of the programme, foreign funding agencies such as SIDA and JAICA funded. On retirement, Piyasena was appointed as a Consultant on Special Education and served in that capacity for some time keeping the momentum in the programme. However, at present, Special Education is neglected and given step motherly treatment.

Children with Special Education are talented in some areas. For instance, the blind have very sharp senses except vision and are talented in many ways; deaf children are also intelligent although they have problems in acquiring language skills and concept development.

As the Sri Lankan example was impressive, some of the officers at the Special Education Unit were given placement in other countries such as in Vietnam and students were sent from the West to study Special Education Programme in Sri Lanka.

Piyasena is of the view that educationists who engaged in developing Special Education should be guided by a clear vision as about 25 % of student intake are children with special needs. No education policy or methodologies will not be fruitful if that segment of students are neglected.

One of the issues is the absence of proper system to identify children with special needs and marginal cases where the children have some impairment such as slow learners, children with slow growth.

Most of the drop outs are those children with special needs. Therefore Special Education programme should be improved with qualified officials as administrators. In some instances, authorities are not prepared to listen to people with experience resulting in deteriorating the quality of education.

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K. Piyasena- Profile

* Commenced career as an itinerant teacher
* Head of Unit for Special Education in 1970
* Entrusted with developing programmes for all categories of children with Special Needs
* Won a Commonwealth Education Fellowship in 1971 and studied Special Education in UK for two years.
* Commenced teacher training programmes at Maharagama Teacher College for blind, deaf and retarded children.
* UNESCO developed the concept of Inclusive Education based on Integration and Mainstreaming approaches tested in Sri Lanka
* In 1984 Piyasena was appointed as Consultant in Special Education for Vietnam
* Serving as an Executive Committee member of the International Council for Education of the Visually Impaired (ICEVI).
* Won ICEVI International Leadership Award for Special Education
* The Board of Governors of the American Biographical Institute selected him as 'Outstanding Professional Award' and received the prestigious 'Man of the Year 2007'.
* Mr. Piyasena's name and biographical details in the International Directory of Experts and Expertise

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