A seminar dedicated to the development of inclusive education was held in the Laboratory
A seminar on "Understanding public attitudes and values that influence the development of inclusive education in Uzbekistan" was held at the ILSIR as part of a series of consulting seminars "Care and well-being in post-socialist Eurasia: institutions, discourses, identities".
The seminar was attended by Linda J. Cook, professor at Brown University and an employee of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University, academic supervisor of the Laboratory, who began the session with a brief historical overview of the policy towards children with disabilities in Russia.
The seminar discussed the rights of children in the Soviet period, ratification and accession to relevant international documents, improvement of infrastructure, inclusion of children in the educational process, support for their educational and social needs, etc.
Then Yana Chicherina, associate Professor of the Department of Special Education of Tashkent State Pedagogical University, made a presentation of her research, told about her work, methods and stages of research, analysis of regulatory and legislative acts concerning children with disabilities in the Republic of Uzbekistan.
Also during the session, the ratio of available opportunities for children with and without disabilities was carried out. As part of the comparison, it was noted that on average 25% of children with disabilities do not have access to school education in the Republic of Uzbekistan. Public opinion has a significant impact on this situation: the majority of respondents (70%) believe that it is better for children with disabilities to study and live in specialized boarding schools.
Then the seminar participants discussed the results of the content analysis of the current legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan in relation to children with disabilities, noting that the medical approach is fundamental to these documents.
The seminar participants exchanged views on a wide range of issues related to the financing of specialized schools, the role of the government in addressing the priorities of the implementation of inclusive education, the place of specialized organizations in society, etc.
Linda J. Cook and Yana Chicherina provided detailed information about the large-scale reforms carried out in Uzbekistan, and their essence and content in relation to children with disabilities.
At the end of the seminar, Elena Iarskaia-Smirnova, Laboratory Head, thanked the participants for the informative presentation and noted that the research topic is quite rare for international academic circles. She noted that the main aspect of the study is the analysis of regulatory and legislative acts, and it is necessary to analyze the historical component and the current situation in the country. She also presented an overview of similar work on comparative analysis of regulatory and legislative acts in the Confucian heritage region. In this work, the similarities, differences and influence of one Asian region on another were shown. Recommendations were made to include in the research work the study of another country from the Central Asian region for comparative analysis.
At the end of the seminar, the participants received answers to their questions and expressed their opinions on the topics discussed.