Disability, Access to Education, and Future Opportunities

Abstract

Access to education for disabled children is an emotive issue. Education policy advisors, the
\ngovernment, teachers, parents, and children themselves, often hold strong and, in many
\ncases, principled opinions on how disabled children should be educated. Viewpoints are often
\nconflicting with some favouring the separation of non-disabled and disabled children into a
\nsegregated system of mainstream and 'special' schools, and others advocating an inclusive
\neducation system where disabled and non-disabled children share the same school environment,
\nalthough not necessarily the same classroom. The former position, that of separation,
\nsupplemented in the past couple of decades by remedial teaching, has been the traditional model
\nin most Western countries, including Ireland.