Barbados’ efforts to integrate students with special needs into mainstream classrooms will falter unless teachers receive sustained training and systemic support, a senior education official warned on Monday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the first day of a two-day workshop at the Barbados Water Authority conference room in The Pine, Acting Education Officer for Special Needs Michelle Gooding outlined efforts underway to deliver on the Ministry of Education’s longstanding promise of inclusion for all learners.
“Part of our education transformation is to become more inclusive,” she said. “If you look across some of our schools, you will see children with special needs sitting in mainstream classrooms.”
The push aligns with policy objectives set out by former Minister of Education Kay McConney, who in 2022 declared inclusive education a national priority. McConney had outlined plans to ensure that children of all abilities are provided with equitable access to quality education, urging school leaders to embrace diversity in the classroom and remove barriers to learning.
Gooding highlighted that inclusion is already a reality in many institutions across the island: “We have children with visual challenges. As you know, there’s a blind student at Harrison College. He was in mainstream primary education. We have students who are [deaf]. They are in mainstream schools. We have children diagnosed with autism. They are in mainstream schools.”
Still, she acknowledged there is more work to be done to ensure meaningful participation for all students.
“We are inclusive, but we are working towards having more of our children included, and that will come through teacher training,” she said.
Autism, in particular, has become a growing focus for the ministry.
“The prevalence of autism, not only in Barbados but across the world, it’s increasing,” Gooding noted. “Over the last two years, we’ve been doing lots of training, especially in summer workshops like this, where we are sensitising teachers to autism and recognising the signs.”
Through that awareness, teachers are better equipped to refer students for assessment through the ministry’s student support services. “When teachers understand autism, they can put the necessary structures in place so that those children can access education in mainstream classrooms,” she said.
In addition to diagnostic support, the ministry is investing in assistive technologies to better accommodate students with speech and language challenges.
“We’ve recently piloted [communication devices] in our special schools where there are devices that they can use to help children with communication challenges,” Gooding explained. “Another workshop we’re having this summer is PETS—the Picture Exchange Communication System—which will help our teachers to ensure that children with communication challenges can have a means of communicating.”
The initiative, she added, reflects a broader goal of preparing educators to address a range of physical, emotional, and cognitive disabilities with confidence.
“We are looking at helping our teachers to understand all of the different disabilities so that when those students sit in the mainstream classrooms, their needs can be met.”
Gooding also pointed to the successful opening of Alma Paris Academy as an example of public demand for inclusive education done right. (SZB)
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