Kickoff meeting
The Spanish Confederation of People with Physical and Organic Disabilities (COCEMFE) defends inclusive education throughout Europe with the development of the project ‘Promoting inclusive schools in Europe through Universal Design for Learning and Service-Learning’ (INCLUDL-Schools), whose objective is to contribute to fostering an inclusive Europe for all students.
This initiative, which is part of the Erasmus+ European Union programme, will run until 2024. The project is coordinated by COCEMFE and has the participation of seven entities, which are participating today in the first face-to-face transnational meeting inaugurated by Daniel -Aníbal García Diego, Secretary of Finance of COCEMFE; Laura López, head of the Projects and Social Innovation Area, and Juan García, head of the Educational and Professional Development Area of the Confederation.
Remedios Ortiz, Beatriz Martínez and Maryorie Benavides, COCEMFE technicians; Marta Sandoval and Roberto Sánchez, researchers from the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM); Gülname Kayhan and Ali Bulut, project technician and manager of the Anamur District National Education Directorate (Turkey); Kalliopi Stefani, project technician at IKE Frontiers of Innovation in Greece; Okan Gültekin and Hasan Demirel, translator and director of the Vakifbank Ataturk Secondary School in Anamur (Turkey); Agnieszka Polywka and Malgorzata Lazar, Principal and Teacher at the Jana Twardowski Catholic Elementary School in Poland, and Ligita Plate and Guntra Buivida, Principal and Head of Studies at the Kuldigas 2 Secondary School in Latvia will work on the definition of the concept of inclusion within the aforementioned project, delving into the development of the Universal Learning Design (DUA) approach that is intended to be put into practice.
INCLUDL-Schools was born from the belief that implementing inclusive methodologies, especially Service-Learning (ApS), and the Universal Design for Learning (DUA) approach is the best way to guarantee the presence, participation and learning results for students.
For the full inclusion and active participation of students with disabilities to be a reality, schools, teachers and other professionals who work with people with disabilities are the main actors who can make change happen. For this they need training, support from the authorities and practical tools that they can use and find useful in their daily work.
This initiative is in line with the activities carried out by the Confederation to guarantee compliance with Sustainable Development Goal number 4 of the United Nations 2030 Agenda and highlights the importance of guaranteeing inclusive, free and quality education as the first step to achieve full inclusion and active participation in society of people with disabilities.
Among the specific objectives of the project are exploring the synergies between a competency-based learning model through the ApS methodology that integrates the DUA as a transversal approach, as well as designing, developing and sharing didactic programs based on ApS methodologies to enrich the capacity of teaching teams and educational centers to integrate inclusive practices.
On the other hand, this initiative seeks to develop a guide to good practices for inclusion, collecting the results of the programs of the schools and the teaching team, it will be possible to collect high-value ICT tools for inclusion in order to create a toolbox for teachers and schools to promote inclusion.
In addition, it also aims to create a friendly and easy-to-use application that makes it easier for teaching teams to design inclusive didactic proposals including the principles of the DUA, control points and activities and, finally, disseminate the results of the project to expand the Commitment of the European Schools to inclusive education.
In this sense, the website https://includl-schools.eu/ has been launched, where resources, experiences and activities of the INCLUDL project will be shared, making them freely accessible to all citizens and thus promoting the use of good practices. that guarantee the right to education of children and young people with disabilities.
