A child rests his head on the school-desk: around him are his school-mates, nonetheless he feels alone. Noone understands him, no one is able to give him any help: the teachers don’t know what to do. He is a disabled pupil, the teacher who was to take care of him, is not there. Luke’s story is not unique in Italy: there are indeed, 230 thousand, disabled pupils in our country, and just over 90 thousand vacancies in all, for special teaching support for the disabled.
One month has already passed since the beginning of the school year, many disabled children just sat, waiting for something to do: there are some who cry, some who cannot go to the bathrooms because the structures are not suitable for the disabled, there are some who are not able to communicate with the normal teachers on the payroll. And the parents have reacted as best they could: some have gone to school on opening day so as not to leave the children alone, others have gone to the extent of calling in the police.
“I have four children to manage, including twins with disabilities – Claire has told In Terris – by the end of May, we had already handed in all our documents required for the law 104, (law which provides for special benefits or leave to families with ill family-members or disabled members ) I expected that, at the beginning of the school-year, the teachers would have been available. But there was not a word, the offices simply kept on saying ‘ we’re busy organizing’: and so the first day of school came and no teachers- neither for the two disabled children. ”
Claire and her family have found the situation at the beginning of the school-year, very chaotic: “some assistants were sharing their working time. The total working hours are stipulated at 40: but assistants already on the payroll only have 20 hours by contract. The most that they can provide is this, for the remaining hours the children are left to themselves with noone to help them. ” Thirty thousand specialised teachers are needed. The ‘Miur’ were supposed to have hired them, but they haven’t, so the children have no assistance whatsoever.
Clare began her ongoing struggle for a right which is already hers: “I went to a thousand offices all over and I knocked on all the doors and finally managed to get 15 hours each; because I was told ‘ we are in the fifth grade , we shall make an extra effort “.
Once having obtained at least 15 hours of teaching support, the matter was not at all solved: “For one of the children I was told they had no teacher for him. The teacher that was there, had already been there the previous year teaching Geography and had then been taken on as a support-teacher because specialised. The same teacher had taken 15 hours with my son, 3 in Geography with the whole class and the rest in another school: this does not offer any continuity at all “.
“His baby brother had been placed with an assistant at the beginning for a trial-period’: it didn’t work out because the child had not accepted her”. When she had gone, another teacher without any specialisation came in her place: she was actually an assistant who had been teaching Italian the previous year. ”
The obstacles that these families need to overcome in order to ensure their children an education, are not limited to simply “getting” a support-teacher in the classroom: they go far beyond this. “The problem also lies in the specialisation skills of the teacher. As Claire explains-some are specialised in helping deaf children or children with physical disabilities: my children are mentally retarded and they lack teachers with this type of specialisation.”
The many shortcomings of the Italian school system reflect on children with disabilities, making them particularly evident especially concerning the earliness with which teachers indicate issues to the families is crucial.
There is a call-centre devoted to complaints, a phone that never stops ringing: it is the integrated Contact Centre for the disabled, “Superabile”. Every day, toll-free calls come in from many: parents, who are desperate and who don’t know how to solve the problem and who to turn to for help. A real slap in the face not only to those who work to improve teaching and learning facilities, but also for families who believe in the worth of the public school.
A State that abandons its vulnerable and the most needy to their fate, unmasks its nature as a “community, simply becoming a group of people who are” obliged “to follow the orders from above. Neglecting the disabled on the part of institutions, should be considered as the most deplorable of all abuses.
Translation provided by Marina Stronati
