Special Education Needs in Warnock Report - Essay Example

? Warnock Report Education is the right of every child throughout the world; it has been made compulsory for the children below the age of 14 by the governments. The motto of ‘equal education to all remained as the symbol of educational reform in 20th century, which was followed by modifications in several educational techniques. The system of education in the United Kingdom is set to provide quality education to the children, to create an innovative and efficient youth force in the country. However, the very system of education is more objective rather than the required subjective approach. Mostly the government’s rules and regulations are designed according to the physical environment and the physical activities of human beings. The same applies in the education system too; as the policies on education are objected to meet the physical and cultural requirements of the children. Resultantly, such objectives are certain to create a huge gap between the psychological requirements of children and the ongoing education practices. Normally, children are emotional in their nature due to the need of dependency; as a result they are more comfortable with emotional attachment. Their nature, personality and the learning ability is structured depending upon the emotional love and affection they entertain in their day to day life. Apparently, the learning ability varies in every child due to the variations in the environment they are grown up. Therefore, the equal standard education plan may be applicable to a mass of student but not to those who are having disability in learning skill. Warnock report came up in the United Kingdom as a revolution in education, advocating for the need of special education system for the children with learning disabilities. The report was against the education system for treating child education with an objective approach. The report talks against the deliberative formalities in teaching styles. The report laid foundations for the introduction of statements of special educational need in England and Wales in 1980 and the statement process has been considered as one of the most major changes in education system of the United Kingdom. 1944 act on education system had been designed to provide education to the children on the basis of age, aptitude and ability. Disabled Children were segregated in eleven several categories of handicap. That included educationally subnormal, and delicate as well as blind. However, the then general viewpoint of the education system was that the child should fit the school rather than the school fit the child (Warnock, 1978). In the year 1974, Warnock Committee chaired by Mary Warnock, was formed to design a new system of education; the committee came up with Warnock Report in 1978, which was objected to look at the needs of children requiring special education. The report concluded that there are 20% children who require special educational need but 2% among them need the special support and the remaining 18% of student can be given care with mainstream school’s facilities. Finally the report recommended that there should be dedicated provision for children with SEN which would be able to protect the 2% and ensure that they are not deprived of the provision (Warnock, 1979). This Report brought another educational reform in action that was Education Act 1981, which added the responsibility to the local education authorities to subjectively recognize and assess pupils with SEN and decide the suitable provision to apply on them. The 1981 Act, afterward successfully surpassed by Education act 1993 and 1996, which bound the state to announce a code of practice on special education need ordering all the local education authority to go as per the SEN provision and made it an obligatory responsibility for all concerned bodies including the school administration to give special care to the children with special education need. The education act of 1981 also allowed the parents of the SEN children to make an appeal to the LEA and to the state government in case of deprival of the provision to their children. Nevertheless, the applied provision had to face little distraction due to a modification in structure of SEN, which was altered by Special Educational Needs & Disability Tribunal SENDIST in 1996 followed by the act 1998, which allowed the admission of children with SEN in mainstream schools. Increasing the rights of parents, the act empowered them to appeal to the SENDIST against LEA decisions to place them in Special Schools. By January 2002, the regulations on SEN became more strict compelling inclusion of SEN children more legal (web, 2005). This change in act, bounded LEAs to place children with SEN in Mainstream Schools not only in a compatible environment with the efficient use of resources but also to educated them in a mainstream school as per the wish of the parent. Eventually, the chairman of the Warnock Commission Baroness Mary Warnock published a pamphlet in 2005, calling for a rethink on special needs and the way in which schools care for SEN is a disastrous waste of money and should be reformed (web, 2005). In an interview, she called the ongoing execution of statements of SEN as a disastrous and a greatest obstacle to good provision. ‘There are far more children statement than we ever envisaged. It has ceased to be about what the child needs and has just become a battle for resources’, she asserted. Warnock suggested abandoning the running practices and to move towards the inclusion (web, 2005). So far, we talked about the emergence of the SEN in the form of Warnock report and its execution in the UK education system with several amendments in the act to strengthen the SEN provision and finally about the dissatisfaction of the report designer about the incorrect application of SEN provision. Considering the Warnock report and its utilization by the UK education system, we can analyze on the subject about its ethics and rationality both on its being and the use. The report is basically based on the empirical fact that a certain percentage of students who are the sufferers of learning disability need the special education. The report further suggested that the maximum percentage of them can be taught in the mainstream schools with available resources and special care but the remaining percentage of SEN students need the separate school with special facilities. However, the government’s effort could not meet the requirement of the report to provide the accurate quality education according to the report. Yet, there are certain difficulties to achieve the goal of the report, which may be identified as follows: The very subjective nature makes it complicated to categorize the disability level among the students. The extremes power given to the parent exact segregation more impossible as the inclusion depends on the wish of the parent. The requirement of psychological experts behind every child makes the accurate execution of the provision more complex as that can take a long time for the government to fulfill the requirement. The above mentioned points may be taken as the obstacles to the proper practice of the SEN provision. In such situation, the government needs to have an overview on the provision in a subjective manner. The provisions of SEN was said to be misused by the UK education system, which was commented by Mary Warnock suggesting the requirement of a new commission to properly carry the objective of SEN. She insisted on the enforcement of the following: Urgent need of Small specialist school provision. Provision against bullying of children with SEN in mainstream schools to be enacted. Effective provision to be made to avoid bias entry in special schools. Mainstream schools should take responsibility of SEN students only if they can support them with own resources (Warnock, 2005). The Independent Panel for Special Education Advice also criticized the second submission of Warnock in 2005 commenting on its wrong accountability in the percentage of SEN children. In addition, the panel also denied accepting the deputation of clinical experts saying that, it is the responsibility of the local education authority and no extra support is required for LEA. However, the criticism put by the panel only opposed on the shortcomings in technical practice of the report not in its objective goal. (Encyclopedia, 2009). Nevertheless, remaining in a dispute does not mean the whole idea of Warnock report is meaningless; the points and recommendations in the report are all very much authentic and liable to provide the quality education to all the SEN children. It is true that, unless and until the effective provisions to execute the SEN requirements is made, the whole planning of the education system to give a quality education will be meaningless, as Warnock accreted in her 2005 pamphlets. It is very much ethical that the idea facilitation to meet the social and cultural need of children is not sufficient for the qualitative growth as the psychological requirement should be given equal importance for all round development of children. However, we cannot disregard the effort of made by UK government to achieve the objective of the report; so far it has been able to achieve a certain percentage of success in the application of the SEN and that is the indication of hundred percent success in a long run. (Encyclopedia, 2009). Hence, the Warnock report was a historical creation of the commission as that brought into the knowledge of the government the minor and subjective facts about the psychological requirement of the children, which normally remains unnoticed. Bringing such innovative idea in practice in UK is among the major educational reforms in the world and for that the country should be thankful to the Warnock commission. References British Medical journal. Contemporary Themes Children with special needs. by Mary Warnock.1979. Her Majesty's Stationery Office. Warnock commission Report: Special Educational Needs. Queen's Printer for Scotland. 1978. Journal on Warnock Report. Retrived from http://www.textic.com. 2008. Journal on Warnock Report. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles.2008. Warnock Report. The Primary English Encyclopedia: The Heart of Curriculum. London. Taylor and Francis. 2005. Read More