CONCEPTUALISING PRE-SERVICE TEACHER TRAINING PROGRAMMES THAT FOCUS ON SUPPORTING LEARNERS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS IN SCHOOLS

The South African Department of Higher Education and Training designed and implemented a Teaching and Learning Development Capacity Improvement Program (TLDCIP) in partnership with the European Union. The aim of these programs are to develop teacher pre-service education programs to address the diversity of challenges in schools. The focus of this paper is on Teacher Education for Special Needs Education (TESNE). The focus of the overall project is to develop resource material and/or other resources such as an open sourced website for teachers and parents; support for research that can be used in the delivery of the programs and further investigation in the special needs field.

The Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) is involved in the TESNE project together with the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria (focus on learners with visual impairment); WITS Deaf Studies (focus on learners who are deaf) and the Department of Disability Studies at the University of Cape Town (focus on people with intellectual disability). The ultimate aim for UJ is to create a center for studies on educating children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Neurodevelopmental Disorders are conditions which manifest in childhood and are characterized by impairments in personal, social, academic, or occupational functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Developmental deficits range from highly specific limitations of learning, communication difficulties and attention control to broad impairments of behaviors, social skills and intelligence.

We report in this paper on the training of specialist teachers and other professionals who will work in the mentioned special needs contexts. Learners with special needs poses challenges for educators when supporting these learners in mainstream, full service or special needs schools. Since the formalization of inclusive education in South Africa, there are more learners in all schools displaying special needs as reported in the implementation of Education White Paper 6 (Department of Basic Education, 2015). Educators require skillful competence to identify, assess and support these learners. In conceptualizing teacher training programs to address these issues, we discuss the continual tensions between the deficit, medical-based approach and an inclusive, systemic paradigm. Conflicting notions of how to differentiate the curriculum, adapt classroom practices and individualize learning plans characterize the debates. Our deliberations extended to the functioning of multi-disciplinary teams and the blurred roles of professionals and parents in schools in attempting to support learners with special needs. In this paper we present our curricular conceptualizations in attempting to resolve some of the tensions inherent in focusing on special needs education within a socially just, inclusive education system.