Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Promoting teacher education through information sharing:
a Brazilian perspective

Presenters: Ms Susie Miles, Mr Paul Mumba, Miss Ingrid Lewis, Dr Windyz Ferreira, Dr Anupam Ahuja

Dr Windyz Ferreira
NGO Education for All (ED-Todos)
Rua Dr Nicolau de souza Queiroa 953, Apto 82
Aclimacao
Sao Paulo
CEP 04105 003
windyz_Ferreira@hotmail.com
windyzferreira@edtodos.org.br

Introduction

The Enabling Education Network (EENET) has provided a key role model for the non-governmental organisation (NGO) ‘Education for All’, ‘Ed-Todos’ in Portuguese, which was founded in 1998. I was fortunate to be studying for my PhD in Manchester from 1996 and so was in the University of Manchester’s School of Education when EENET was established in 1997. From that moment on I have learned a lot from this experience.

EENET has helped create opportunities for us to participate in, and make relevant connections to, the field of inclusive education. This has been crucial for our development as members of an NGO and for identifying teachers as our main audience and for moving gradually towards making a contribution to teacher development for Inclusion.   In Brazil, teacher education and development is at the heart of government targets to improve the education system for all and to combat exclusion, specifically the high failure and drop-out rates.

We began with a mission to support inclusive education, but, at that time, disability was our main focus and we did not have clarity about the audience we were trying to reach. The steady connection with EENET led the ED-Todos members to achieve a clear comprehension of the role and the importance of networking particularly in countries below the Equator, where resources tend to be scarce and educational needs significant. EENET has provided us with a model for fighting discrimination, promoting networking and sharing information.

EENET as a key role model for Ed-Todos Brazilian NGO

The Education for All NGO (ED-Todos) was founded by academics, practitioners, professionals in the field of special needs, and parents of disabled people. Since its beginning our NGO has been run by volunteers and we have no financial support.   ED-Todos is committed to inclusion and the right to a quality education for all. Presently its main contribution involves dissemination of quality information and knowledge to support teacher education.

The two major events held by ED-Todos so far, including an international congress and the launching of a website. In December 2001 we held an international congress entitled ‘Latin American Congress on Inclusive Education, learning from each other’, with the objective of creating a forum for exchanging knowledge, experiences and skills between policy makers, educators, academics, practitioner and the wider community. EENET and ED-Todos representatives co-ordinated the session The Enabling Education Network, the Edtodos and the regionalisation of EENET that addressed the issue of networking in Latin America and aimed at mobilizing efforts to contribute to information and resources dissemination for both organisations.   I n March 2004 ED-Todos launched its website www.edtodos.org.br with the objective to contribute to the growth of the circulation of relevant knowledge and information in the field of inclusive education, including international documents (e.g. guidelines, reports), national legislation, events and new publications, interviews,   and so on.

ED-Todos became an ‘EENET friend’ in May 2000 and in October 2003 ED-Todos and EENET signed a Memorandum of Understanding  that has established our formal partnership. This official agreement was very important for us because it gave us a clearer identity as part of a larger network which includes organizations from other countries such as Nigeria, Kenya, Portugal, India, and many others. Our commitment involves “the endeavour to collect, collate and share information on good practice to promote inclusive education in economically poor countries” (Miles, 2005) since many practitioners working in Southern countries are desperately in need of easy to read and relevant information.

EENET provided ED-Todos with a small grant to support our development and we decided to invest it in a new website format. Now our website has become an On-line Newsletter ED-Todos em Rede (ED-Todos in network), which is focused particularly in supporting teacher education by providing relevant articles, papers, research, interviews, information about events and other relevant activities, and so on. In this sense, we believe that we are supporting EENET’s role of starting where practitioners are, stimulating them to think critically about their situations, supporting them to make changes in their own attitudes and practice, and encouraging their colleagues to respond creatively to difference and diversity.

M aking relevant connections in the field of inclusive education

EENET aims to promote South-South and South-North networking, information-sharing and learning. Since ED-Todos became one of EENET’s ‘friends’, we have had several opportunities to take part of relevant activities, including, the translation into Portuguese of the study on discrimination against children with disability carried out by Save the Children-Sweden (SCS 2001); the Family Action for Inclusion seminar held in May 2000 at University of Manchester (EENET 2002); the Learning from Difference seminar  whose focus was on regionalisation held by the EENET in Portugal in 2002; the UNESCO gathering for discussing the Flagship on Education for All and the rights of Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion held in Helsinki in 2002, and many others.

All these opportunities were crucial to provide new connections and future opportunities. For instance, in 2003 Save the Children Sweden funded a study that members of the ED-Todos carried out in the northeast of Brazil about discrimination against children and young people with disability. The study was the foundation for the publication Learning about rights of Children with disabilities, a guide for parents, schools and communities (SCS 2003).   In the same year, EENET and ED-Todos were invited to participate of the Development Aid Policy Symposium, Disability in Development Cooperation in the context of Poverty Eradication, Sustainable Development and Education held in 2002 in Germany with the view to share with the participants, experiences on inclusion in countries of the South.   More recently, members of ED-Todos and the Portuguese NGO Citizens of the World have been ‘chatting’ to discuss the possibilities of working together and supporting each other with the view to support Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa in the field of inclusion.

The partnership between EENET and ED-Todos has been very important for us to keep connected internationally, EENET staff help to bring us into the ‘global world’.   Therefore, EENET support has been crucial for the ED-Todos’ members and to push forward our practices as a Brazilian network with just a few resources and volunteers. In this sense and because barriers are so great, the EENET collaboration is indeed valuable because it gives us a sense of belonging to a wider community, and nourishes our motivation for keeping contributing to networking in both our country and Latin America as a whole.

The power of networking

“Although we are living in the age of the global information and knowledge society the majority of people still do not have access to easy-to-read information about inclusive education in accessible formats and relevant languages”. (Miles, 2005)

One of the major barriers faced in Latin America is the difficulty in accessing materials in the English language and the lack of materials in Portuguese. The large majority of relevant publications and on-line information is in English.

There is also a shortage of published materials in the field of inclusive education which are accessible to teachers in general, and materials in higher education institutions are scarce and out of date.   In the main universities located in south east Brazil this situation is a little better. However there is little or no exchange between regions within the country. On the other hand access to the Internet is growing fast in the continent.   In Brazil the federal government has been steadily supporting the advancement of the use of the Internet in schools, and for this purpose the government has adopted LINUX – a free software - to make computing facilities more accessible.

ED-Todos aims to contribute to the development of inclusive education systems in Brazil and Latin American countries by exploring new ways of using the Internet. We want to improve access to updated knowledge and information that are relevant to the development of inclusive cultures, policies and practices in education systems and schools in general. At the same time, we also intend to put the theme of action research methodology for developing inclusive schools on the agenda of the research communities in Latin American countries in order to increase participation of practitioners in projects and programmes.

Currently, ED-Todos is carrying out an action-research project whose co-ordination involves a partnership with an 'insider' primary education teacher. Its aim is the development of inclusive practices in mainstream classrooms through the provision of in-service teacher training for eleven teachers. We started the project in March 2005.   knowing the relevance of systematic collaboration amongst teachers and also how hard it is to promote it in the Brazilian context as we will see later, we adopted a few strategies to consolidate collaboration by using ICT. We set up an email list in which everyone involved in the project is expected to share information on a regular basis – this is a system which some use more than others. Teachers were invited to share their experiences in the classroom on a daily basis. They ‘talk’ about strategies they have used, about pupils' responses, they self assess the results, ask for suggestions and make suggestions. The co-ordination role in the list is to help and stimulate the group to understand the importance of reflecting on their classroom experiences and to share these experiences as a means to collaborate with one another in order to push their practice forward.

We are aware that a lot need still to be done, but with our friends from the EENET and our regional network we are now feeling we will be more able to achieve our objectives.

Future challenges

The connection with the EENET and access to ICT enabled ED-Todos NGO to be included in the international network committed to inclusive education. During all these years, we have understood the inherent power of building up networks and promoting the sharing of information, experiences and knowledge to support human resources capacity-building processes by using the virtual tools we have available today.  

Our experience in Brazil as members of the ED-Todos illuminate that access to ICT is a key factor in the sustainability of a process of capacity building of educators – and specially teachers - for fostering inclusion. By being able to keep connected to the wider international network we are also able to maintain the feeling of membership of the wider inclusive education team, whose members are spread all over the planet. And this feeling is very important for us who have been historically excluded from participating for such a long time…

Another major challenge for ED-Todos members now is to develop strategic planning skills and to invest in getting funding from international and national organizations in order to develop even further and to be more successful in our mission to combat exclusion and promote inclusion by supporting Teacher Education.

As members of a Southern NGO committed to networking and the sharing of information we have developed a deeper understanding about the great value of what is produced in countries of the South – our countries - and how this should be widely made available to support the development of Teachers Education in both Northern and Southern countries.   Again EENET has created a worthwhile opportunity for the participation of Southern representatives. We believe that we can serve as model for others to review their practices and opportunities for networking.

References

EDtodos (2002) Relatório de Pesquisa e Ação Comunitária para a Conscientização, Crianças com Deficiência e a Convenção dos Direitos da Criança: um instrumento de defesa. ED-Todos/Save the Children-Suécia, João Pessoa, PB. www.edtodos.org.br

EENET (2002) Family Action for Inclusion. Manchester: The Enabling Education Network: www.eenet.org.uk

Miles, Susie (2005) ‘ Networking for inclusion: EENET’s experience’. Article submitted to the ED-Todos em Rede Newsletter On-Line. www.edtodos.org.br

SCS (2001) Disabled Children’s Rights- a practical guide. Author: Hazel Jones. Save the Children Sweden. www.rb.se or www.scslat.org or info@rb.se

SCS (2003). Aprendendo sobre os Direitos das Crianças com Deficiência, Guia de Orientação à Família, Escola e Comunidade (Learning about rights of children with diability: a guide for parents, school and community). Pesquisa e Texto: Windyz B. Ferreira. www.edtodos.org.br and postmaster@scs.org.pe

This project is a personal initiative and has no funding.

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