Memorandum submitted by the Department
for Children, Schools and Families
Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights
of Persons with Disabilities is about ensuring that disabled people
can access education without discrimination and on the basis of
equal opportunity. The UK Government is committed to continuing
to develop an inclusive education system through each local authority
to continue to develop a range of provision that enables all disabled
children to achieve their potential. Working collaboratively with
local authorities' support services and special schools, mainstream
schools can ensure that the wide spectrum of need is met. However,
our domestic legislation provides that where a decision is being
made on a school placement for a child with a statement of special
educational needs, s/he must be educated in a mainstream school
unless that is incompatible with either the wishes of his/her
parent, or the provision of efficient education for other children.
We wish to continue to enable local authorities to take parental
wishes into account, when determining school placements for children
with statements of special educational need. Therefore, special
schools remain an important part of local authorities' inclusive
range of educational provision for disabled children, and we propose
to take an interpretive declaration to Article 24 (2)(a) to clarify
that the UK general education system includes both mainstream
and special schools.
Further, Article 24 (2)(b) seeks to ensure that
all disabled people can access an inclusive, quality and free
primary education and secondary education on an equal basis with
others in the communities in which they live. We are aware that
some disabled children have their needs met by specialist provision,
which can be some distance from their home and communities, particularly
for children from rural areas. Additionally, there is a risk that
parental choice could be limited if such non local opportunities
were no longer available to disabled children and their families.
Anne McGuire's statement of 6 May 2008 said that we would need
a reservation in respect of such children. Following representations
we are considering how these concerns should be expressed to best
reflect the Government's commitment to inclusion of disabled people.
3 November 2008
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