The Canary Platform for Inclusive Education, together with the associations Somos Uno Más, Sentirte, NEAEs Tenerife, Amararte and ACAEDIN, the NEAE Commission of Fuerteventura, FAPA Galdós and UDECA, publicly express their "deep rejection and indignation" at amendments 112, 113, 114 and 143 of the Popular Parliamentary Group incorporated in the Senate to the Bill modifying the General Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Dependency Law.
The Canary entities join the legal complaint filed by the Asociación Segundo Maestro and REDIN and warn that these modifications "may represent a serious setback in the educational rights of students with disabilities, by directly affecting the schooling model, the psycho-pedagogical evaluation, the role of guidance services and, especially, the obligation to transform and provide resources to ordinary schools".
"We are not facing a minor or merely technical issue. We are talking about the fundamental right to education of thousands of children and young people with disabilities," they state.
Four particularly concerning amendments
Amendment 112 modifies article 18 of Royal Legislative Decree 1/2013 and places ordinary schools, special education centers, combined schooling and specific classrooms on the same regulatory level.
This implies, in their opinion, "a huge risk of normalization and perpetuation of separate educational modalities due to disability, instead of moving towards an ordinary educational system capable of guaranteeing the support and adjustments that each student needs".
Amendment 113 introduces a new article 18 bis on educational and training pathways, subjecting the determination of the pathway for students with disabilities to an individualized assessment and conditioning certain accesses to reports from guidance services.
"We are particularly concerned that the psycho-pedagogical evaluation may end up becoming an administrative tool that conditions the exercise of educational rights that for the rest of the students are not subject to this type of authorization," they assure.
Amendment 114 eliminates previously foreseen obligations for guidance services, including exploring the possibilities of inclusion in ordinary schools, identifying existing barriers and proposing measures to eliminate them.
"And we consider amendment 143 especially serious, which seeks to repeal the fourth additional provision of the LOMLOE, which establishes the mandate to progressively provide, within ten years, ordinary schools with the necessary resources to adequately serve students with disabilities," they point out.
"One cannot speak of inclusion while precisely eliminating the obligation to provide the resources that make that inclusion possible," they defend.
In the Canary Islands, we know the consequences of the lack of resources
From the Canary Islands, they also warn of the especially worrying consequences that this setback could have. "For years, families have denounced that the lack of resources, support, and personnel in ordinary schools ends up being used to justify the referral of students with disabilities to enclave classrooms or special education centers."
"That is why it is especially alarming that, while different modalities of separate schooling are legally reinforced, the intention is to eliminate one of the main legal mandates aimed precisely at reinforcing the resources of ordinary schools," they continue.
The Administration's lack of resources "can never become a supposed educational need of the child."
Special concern about the future Law of Diversity of the Canary Islands
This situation "becomes even more serious for Canary Islands families at a time when our autonomous community is immersed in the processing of a new Law for Attention to Diversity and Student Well-being."
"The signatory entities will be especially vigilant to prevent any setback that may occur in state regulations from being used later to consolidate a model based on the segregation of students with disabilities in the Canary Islands, instead of guaranteeing their effective inclusion in the ordinary educational system with all the necessary resources and support," they state.
"The Canary Islands need to move forward, not backward. A new diversity law must serve to guarantee rights, remove barriers, establish real support, and protect students from any form of discrimination or exclusion," they explain.
We demand that Congress reject these amendments
For all these reasons, the signatory organizations request all parliamentary groups in the Congress of Deputies to not ratify amendments 112, 113, 114, and 143 as approved by the Senate and to submit them to a separate vote to enable their rejection.
Likewise, they demand that the fourth additional provision of the LOMLOE be maintained in its entirety and that an effective commitment, accompanied by funding, planning, and accountability, be guaranteed to provide ordinary schools with the necessary resources.
"Inclusive education cannot depend on the postal code, the resources available in each school, or an administrative decision about how far a student can go because they have a disability," they say.
Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognizes the right to an inclusive education system, and the Spanish Constitution obliges public authorities to guarantee the rights of persons with disabilities.
Therefore, they warn that "we will not allow a law intended to strengthen the rights of persons with disabilities to be used to introduce modifications that could end up weakening their right to inclusive education. There are no excess children. What is lacking are resources and the will to transform the system. Inclusion is not about choosing where to separate students with disabilities. It is about transforming the school so that no child has to be separated because of their disability."
The signatory entities are: Plataforma Canaria de Educación Inclusiva, Asociación Somos Uno Más, Asociación Sentirte, NEAEs Tenerife, Amararte, ACAEDIN, Comisión de NEAE de Fuerteventura, FAPA Galdós, and UDECA.
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