Finnish Policies And Practices For Supporting Different Learners

Abstract

Nowadays the inclusive practices allow all pupils to attend the school they would attend if they did not have a disability, and no pupil can be deprived of placement, because of a disability unless they are a danger to themselves or other students. Pupils with special educational needs are included in the school population and served in the general education classes alongside students without disabilities. Unlike traditional education practices, inclusive education strives to provide intervention, remediation, and support within the general education classroom. Inclusive education is based on the principle according to which education should be delivered at different levels using multiple methods to meet the needs of all pupils. Anyway, some authors discuss the risk of inclusion, which only involves moving special education practices into the mainstream classes. From this perspective, inclusion comes to mean nothing more than integrating children with special educational needs into regular classrooms and the process of ordinary teaching leaves unchanged. Based on this it is very important to investigate and analyze "the inclusive education" provided in the schools from the teachers' points of view in order to find out the real picture about the inclusiveness from a very broad perspective.

From this perspective, the review of Finish policies and practices shows that inclusion itself and by its nature is the favored approach to education for pupils with special educational needs, whenever possible.