Ligia Deca recognizes the lack of support staff in schools: So that teachers can do what they do best, education, we need specialists to help us in related areas, dropout prevention, students with CES, application to European projects

“So that teachers can do what they know best, education, we need specialists to help us in related areas, dropout prevention, students with SEN, application to European projects”, said Ligia Deca, in Mureș County, on March 28, in response to the problems reported at the “Unirea” National College, where “for more than 900 students there is only one psychologist, one school counselor, with the impossibility of providing a support teacher”, by Aurora Stănescu, director of the College .

Ligia Deca said that the number of school counselors increased by 50%, but “with each kindergarten inaugurated, with each child with SEN integrated in the school, other needs for positions appear. I think that until we ask and it is clear that they are needed, we will not have a chance of someone approving us.”

Regarding the training of teachers to work with students with SEN, Ligia Deca says that in mild cases “learning from each other can work very well, if we have one, two, five teachers who have been trained in this regard in a school, I am absolutely convinced that you can organize at the level of each school a session where they can exchange their experiences and somehow, you know that expression was used, to steal one’s job from the otherand”.

Ligia Deca said that in the training requirements of the schools they expect to see the need for training for teachers to integrate children with SEN, to support schools with national funds, with national training programs.

The intervention of the Minister of Education:

Aurora Stanescu: At “Unirea” National College, for over 900 students, we have only one psychologist, one school counselor, with the impossibility of securing, being able to help us with a support teacher, because there is also no possibility to had a large number of such teachers, with a legislation which, I repeat, is generous and well fixed, but does not meet our relationship with the case study, with that plan that you mentioned a little earlier, with the way in which we must correlate the student’s problem with what is happening in the classroom.

There is an extremely varied typology of CES cases. How does the teacher contact the principal, the school counselor, the parent, CJRAE? Please forgive me for the abbreviation, but beyond this, we need to have other levers, of direct help, to know how to manage the delicate situation of students with special educational needs.

Ligia Deca: Really, the new law changes the philosophy a bit, it sets a general and generous goal, I would say, aimed at integrating all children who can be integrated into mainstream schools with the right help. We also define four special levels of basic, additional, intensive and special support. We also clarify what level of support can be integrated into mainstream schools.

We do one more thing, in that evaluation that is done to determine the special educational requirements, we are trying to standardize the methodology that until now varied from one county to another and which in some CES certificates specified the necessary support, what the respective child needs to be able to function in a mainstream school and in others not. We believe it is necessary to explain very clearly what support is needed and work towards providing it.

That’s why we increased the number of advisors by 50% and we will make another effort. That is why I think we must be able to help ourselves with the expertise of other institutions. That’s why we tried to put the resources together. We did not abolish the county assistance and resource centers, as was perhaps the case in the first version of the law put up for public debate. I kept them.

We said let’s see how many support teachers we have, so we can have a clear record and be able to allocate them where they are most needed. But, if we are honest, we, the large public systems of education, social assistance, health, continue to suffer from a terrible lack of staff, especially in this area of ​​support.

For teachers to be able to do what they know best, education, we need specialists to help us in related areas, whether it’s dropout prevention, whether it’s CES, whether it’s application to European projects or I don’t know me what else We need some people to help the school from these perspectives.

I wanted, first of all, together with my colleagues, to make transparent this need for additional support, that sometimes, from the reality of the fact that you knew you weren’t getting it, you stopped asking. We need to know very clearly how many children with SEN we have and what support they need.

If you remember, I also remember that it was a painful debate, we had a provision in the law that talked about the integration of the child, with CES in the school that has the resources to integrate him, and then there was a terrible social reaction in which accused that, in fact, the ministry is trying to block the access of children with CES to mainstream schools. Far from us this thought. We just wanted to establish some sort of guarantee of the school’s ability to integrate successfully. We don’t have that provision, but if we have a clear record of the necessary specialists and make requests to the inspectorate, we have a chance to ask for them at the national level and get them.

Last year was the first time I asked the inspectorates, vplease tell me what your staffing needs are, but honestly, i mean don’t tell me what your staffing needs are, but fit in. What staffing needs do you actually have?. I put the figures as they came from the inspectorate in a table. We issued a government decision in public debate and for the first time approved the number of posts, as given by the inspectorates, as necessary and distributed them in the territory.

Of course, eight months later other needs arose. Of course, with each kindergarten opened, with each child with SEN integrated in the school, other needs for positions appear, but I believe that until we ask and it is clear that they are needed, we will not have a chance for someone to approve us. Maybe this year a little, next year more and so on, until we manage to have the staff we need.

I talked about support staff, but the teachers also tell us that they need training and they need to understand what those pedagogical strategies can be for the integration of children with special educational requirements, especially when they are easy and just need some different pedagogical strategies.

This is where I think learning from each other can work very wellif we have one, two, five teachers who have been trained in a school in this regard, I am absolutely convinced that you can organize at the level of each school a session where they can exchange their experiences and somehow, you know this expression was used, to steal one’s job from the others, and in the training requirements of the schools I expect to see the training requirements for teaching staff for the integration of children with CES, so that we can also support you with national funds, with national training programs.

Background information on the number of students with special educational needs, school counselors and support teachers

How many children with educational needs are in the education system in Romania

The Ministry of Education keeps track of children with special educational requirements who benefit from financial and educational rights, according to the school orientation certificate issued by CJRAE, as follows:

In the 2021-2022 school year, the number of beneficiaries was 65,981 children, according to the Report on the State of Pre-University Education 2021-2022.

In the 2022-2023 school year, there were 65,082 children, in February 2023, according to data provided by the Ministry of Education at the request of Edupedu.ro.

Data source: Ministry of Education

The data produced by the educational system related to students with SEN are of poor quality

“Administrative data produced by the education system related to SEN students is of poor quality, partly due to differences in local implementation of regulations made at national level.

Administrative data reporting for the same indicator differs in many cases between institutions in the same county (for example, between the School Inspectorate and CJRAE). Differences can also be attributed to different and/or flawed data collection processes.

Example: The share of students who also have a certificate of disability in the total number of students with CES in a county shows a considerable variation at the national level, between 12% and 94% (the average value calculated for the 32 counties for which there are data is 51%)” , according to the Diagnosis of the situation of people with disabilities in Romania, from 2021.

The situation of school counselors

A maximum number of 500 students is allocated to a school counselor postrespectively a maximum number of 300 preschoolers, according to the pre-university education law.

“The didactic norm of the school counselor teacher corresponds to a position of teacher-school counselor and is established by reporting to a maximum number of 500 students, a maximum of 500 students and preschoolers or a maximum of 300 preschoolers”, according to Art. 207, (9 ).

At the beginning of February 2023, the Ministry of Education announced the national allocation of 1,200 school counselor positions, which schools can start hiring.

“Basically, we’re going from one counselor per 1,200 students on average to one counselor per 800 students and preschoolers,” said Ligia Deca.

• Edupedu.ro requested the Ministry of Education the number of filled positions out of the 1,200 open to competition and the total number of school counselors in the 2023-2024 school year. When we receive an official response, we will publish it.

The situation of support teachers

There are 1,852 itinerant and support teachers and teachers in the 2023-2024 school yearaccording to the data of the Ministry of Education, sent at the request of Edupedu.ro, in February 2024.

A support teacher would have approximately 35 students with CES, compared to 8-12 students, as provided by the current methodologyregarding the organization of educational support services for children, students and young people with special educational needs integrated into mainstream education, from October 7, 2011.

“The grading and staffing of itinerant and support teachers is carried out as follows:

a) a post for 8-12 children/students/young people with moderate or mild deficienciesintegrated individually or in groups of 2-3 students in groups/classes from mass education units, equivalent to the teaching norm of 16 hours;

b) a post for 4-6 children/students/young people with serious, profound or associated deficienciesintegrated individually or in groups of 2-3 students in groups/classes from mass education units, equivalent to the teaching norm of 16 hours.

The 16 hours/week related to the teaching norm are carried out in direct activity with the integrated child/student, in the classroom or in multifunctional rooms/resource centers in the educational unit where the child/student is enrolled”, according to Art. 11.

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