European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education Project updates Marcella Turner-Cmuchal

i-access Project ● March 2011 to February 2012 ● supported under the Lifelong Learning Transversal Programme, Key Activity 1: Policy Co-operation and Innovation funding, agreement number: LLP-2010-DK-KA1- KA1ECETA. ● Experts from 21 Agency member countries

What is i-access? ● i-access stands for “information - accessibility” ● This includes access to all forms of information: – Websites and web tools – Electronic and print files – Various forms of media – Contact with organisations ● i-access is more then technology, it is also about how technology is embedded in suitable organisational processes to provide the organisation's target groups with a fully accessible interaction experience

Project Goals ● The ultimate goal of the project has been to raise awareness of the issues surrounding accessible information provision for lifelong learning (LL) in order to facilitate positive developments towards accessible information provision. ● One objective to reach this goal was the development of recommendations to support accessible information provision.

Project Participants From each Agency member country: – One education policy expert and – One multiplier (researcher or journalist). Additional experts: ● UNESCO, G3ict, the International Association of Universities, European Schoolnet, World Wide Web Consortium/Web Accessibility Initiative and DAISY Consortium

Guiding Principles Rights Principle: Access to information is a fundamental right - it empowers learners and facilitates their participation in society. This access must be provided in the earliest phases of learning and accompany a learner throughout their lifetime. Structural Principle: It is vital that any policy or recommendation does not regard technology as an end in itself. The systemic factors that determine the use of tools for lifelong learning must be recognised and considered. All-Inclusive Principle: Accessible information provision needs to be considered in its widest interpretation to include people with all forms of disabilities and/or special educational needs. Synergy Principle: Accessibility benefits users with disabilities and/or special educational needs and may often benefit all users.

Recommendations 1. Raising awareness about accessible information for lifelong learning as a rights issue. Policy makers, organisations and professionals in lifelong learning, ICT specialists, people with disabilities and/or special educational needs and their families and support networks should be made aware of learners’ rights to accessible information provision. 2. A multi-stakeholder approach based upon co-operation and information exchange should be taken. Highly specific policies focused upon single interest group issues alone cannot achieve the provision of accessible information for lifelong learning. Policies must be developed and then implemented based upon the principle of a multi-stakeholder approach. 3. Issues around accessible information provision should be covered in the education of all professionals involved in lifelong learning. ICT can contribute to effective access to learning opportunities only if all professionals in lifelong learning are educated in the use of ICT as a tool to enable equal opportunities in education.

Recommendations 4. Issues around accessible information provision should be covered in the education of ICT and media professionals. Educating media and ICT specialists on the impact of disabilities and/or special educational needs on people using ICT, it is possible to develop more accessible technology from design to production and avoid later work to make the finished product more accessible. 5. Accessibility should be a guiding principle for procurement of all goods and services. Goods or services should only be purchased from organisations that fully account for accessibility issues. 6. Research should be promoted in order to develop an evidence base for future policy design, implementation and evaluation. Long-term research efforts in this area should inform policy-making, monitoring and evaluation and should aim to identify areas for future development and work. 7. Compliance to policy should be systematically monitored. Monitoring of compliance can only be encouraged at present, but should be extended. Compliance with accessibility policy is monitored on an international level for signatories of the UNCRPD (2006), but currently not all countries provide these annual reports. In the long term monitoring of compliance to accessibility policy should be mandatory at the national level.

Project Outputs ● Project web area agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/; agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/ ● Conference report and all conference materials access/i-access-conference; access/i-access-conference ● i-access recommendations report access/i-access-files/i-access-report.pdf and summary translated in 21 Agency languages; access-summary-flyers/i-access-summary-flyers; access/i-access-files/i-access-report.pdf access-summary-flyers/i-access-summary-flyers

Project Outputs ● Collection of examples of practice ● Glossary of related Terms access/glossary-of-terms; access/glossary-of-terms ● Collection of Useful Resources agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/useful-resources; agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/useful-resources ● Suggestions for further reading agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/further-reading; agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/further-reading ● Collection of Dissemination examples agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/collection-of- dissemination-examples. agency.org/agency-projects/i-access/collection-of- dissemination-examples

ICT for Inclusion Background: ● Information Communication Technology in Special Needs Education ( ) ● ICTs in Education for People with Disabilities (practice review 2010/2011) ● Agreed as being a priority for the Agency member countries in the 2010 Country Survey ● 1 year update project

Focus of ICT for Inclusion ● An update on developments in countries since the 2001 project; ● Current information on participating countries’ policy and practice in using ICT with pupils with different special educational needs; ● Developing the main conclusions of the Practice Review completed in collaboration with UNESCO-IITE on the use of ICTs in education for people with disabilities.

ICT update project to focus upon 5 key propositions linked to the UNCRPD 1. ICT should be considered as a key tool for promoting equity in educational opportunities 2. Access to appropriate ICT should be considered an entitlement 3. Training of educational staff in the use of general and specialist ICT must be considered a priority area 4. The promotion of ICT research and development requires a multi stakeholder approach 5. Data collection and monitoring in the use of ICT in inclusion should be considered an area requiring attention at all levels of educational provision

ICTs to promote equity in educational opportunities (1) ● ICT in education for people with disabilities should not be seen as an end in itself – it should be seen as a means, or a tool for increasing effective access to and meaningful participation in educational opportunities ● The use of ICT in education for people with disabilities needs to be geared towards supporting inclusive education

ICTs to promote equity in educational opportunities (2) ● The availability of ICT for people with disabilities must be viewed within a continuum of educational opportunities across lifelong learning ● The implementation of ICT in education for people with disabilities must take a systemic approach

Access to appropriate ICTs (1) ● Promoting positive attitudes towards the use of ICTs within different stakeholder groups may be as important as providing learners with a range of specialist ICTs ● A consideration of the possible ‘synergy’ of combined barriers to learning should to be considered in determining the appropriateness of ICTs

Access to appropriate ICTs (2) ● Access to appropriate ICTs in different lifelong learning contexts – including home based situations – often requires input from professionals coming from different fields ● All learners with disabilities are involved in and have opportunities to influence the decisions made regarding their access to ICT

Training of educational staff ● Teacher education should provide information that makes clear the theory and rationale for using ICTs to support learning of people with disabilities, as well as practical experiences in implementing ICT tools and approaches ● Teacher education for all teachers – mainstream and specialists – should take a developmental, competency approach ● There is a need for more careful examination of successful approaches to this combined, embedded model of teacher education

Promotion of ICT research and development ● The end users of technology – people with disabilities and their families and caregivers – must be involved in its design and development ● There is a need to support networks involving all stakeholders in the use of ICT in education for people with disabilities ● Both research and development initiatives as well as action plans for making technological tools available in education and training need to operate within a coherent and well co-ordinated policy and provision infrastructure

Data collection and monitoring ● ICT in education for people with disabilities must be considered a ‘trans-sectoral’ field ● In order to avoid confusion between stakeholders, a shared language for the use of ICT in education for people with disabilities is needed ● All countries need to track the implementation of their policies for ICT and education, both generally and specifically in relation to the education of people with disabilities

Expected Project Outcomes International and European Literature Review International and European Policy Review Country information collected via an online survey Centralised resource on existing databases of resources and examples of practice Format: All resources electronic only Aim to provide fully accessible information