| a) Target groups: pupils with special needs
b) General description and methodsPossibilities of the preparation of humans with special needs in the school on the working place.
Under this title worked the SPZ Stegersbach as coordinating school with the partners from Roeselare/BL, Koeszeg/H and Rotterdam/L on a COMENIUS project from the autumn 1997 up to the year 2000.
The world of work and its changes represent a central challenge for humans with special needs. The integration has therefore both a personal and a socio-political meaning. Regional conditions such as border proximity, missing adequate jobs and high mobility need make this integration even more difficult.
The experience in the education work with handicapped humans shows however that the entire learning project must be co-ordinated contentwise, methodically and in the temporal operational sequence with the personal conditions and needs. Under this aspect also the planning for the project "Die Brücke / The Bridge" is to be seen, in which one tries to find on pupils or groups of pupils co-ordinated solution types for the transition from the school. Sense of the project is it to collect experiences of the work with partner schools.
A tension element within the project resulted from the different forms of the education work in the partner schools. That why through the integrative methodes in Austria pupils with special educational needs participate both in special grades and in secondary schools and polytechnics participate in the program, while the partner schools in the remaining countries have the character of special schools. Only in Austria a dual system is intended for the professional training, in which however for handicaps in learning and mental illness hardly remains place. This is a personal experience by teachers in addition by statistics. In the remaining participating states professional training is task of the school. The number of unemployed within the range of the graduates of special schools is generally high.
c) Main objectives:
A goal of the project it was to point out different ways how to make integration, to prepare it, and to accompany. Also existing co-operations with advisory boards, Workin assistence enterprises and promotion workshops (in Stegersbach Action “Safe children” / “Rettet das Kind”) were inserted.
In addition, the problem in the direct environment of the pupils (parents, families, decision makers, enterprises) should be made conscious. It went adjusting therefore both to point out unrealistic expectations but also to realize existing talents and abilities. A product in addition was one, common exhibition arranged by the pupils, which was shown in the framework by work meetings at the 4 partner schools. As accompanying event in each case a seminar for professional aids took place.
The project was arranged consciously in such a way that no restricting in purchase of a career profile or a form of the entrance to the working sphere should appear. Regional conditions were the beginning, which experienced an enriching by the European dimension by exchange of knowledge around talents and of models.
The department for Special pedagogic at the CED Rotterdam was as mechanism for school company and development from the beginning involved in the development of the project. Nearly by the entire phase a scientific company and evaluation was done.
d) Activities and events:
For co-designing the pupils offered, depending upon handicap and development level, the following concrete contents:
- Become acquainted with and document the working sphere in the own surrounding field
Occupation possibilities and the way to it *
General requirements of the working sphere
Special mechanisms for work and occupation therapy
Existing assistance such as consulting mechanisms, Working assistance
Comparison of vocational fields
Elaboration of differences and things in common
Become acquainted with occupations in other countries in spezial working field
Trying out such methods in lessons and in the practical part of the education
- The entrance to the working sphere
Making conscious of the existing possibilities in the own surrounding field.
Representation of the models of the entrance to the working sphere by selected examples in the partner regions
Comparison of these models
Practical testing of models and parts of it on negotiability in the own surrounding field (inside the school autonomy)
- Changing the world of work:
Meaning of new technologies in the working sphere
Search for new vocational fields for the pupils by information exchange
Representation of new possibilities for the public in text and picture form
Comparison of forms and height of the remuneration of the work in the partner regions
Comparison of the costs of the daily need and the spare time
Preparation for the common currency and their effects on the individual life situation
Unemployment and the consequences for the personal situation
Possibilities of the social security
Ways out from unemployment in the regions
Possibilities of the after-school support and further training for handicapped ones
e) Outcomes
Processful learning of pupils and teachers in the project was seen as the most important product. In the autumn 2000 as final product a cinematic documentation developed, in it was tried to document the different ways and the common experiences.
Source:
http://www.avin.at/spz-stegersbach/. |