Strides made in special education during 13th Five-Year Plan period

China's efforts to bolster special education yielded significant achievements during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), the Ministry of Education (MOE) said at a press conference on Sunday.

China made major progress in enrollment rates, faculty development, financial support and education quality, according to Zhu Dongbin, deputy director-general of MOE’s Department of Basic Education.

The number of students enrolled in special education doubled from 440,000 in 2015 to 880,000 in 2020. The compulsory education enrollment rate for disabled children reached more than 95 percent.

"Ensuring the right to education for disabled children is an important aspect of, as well as a foundation for, promoting greater rights to survival and development for them," said Zhu.

Moreover, special education has been extended to preschool and senior high school and above. More than 50,000 disabled students have received higher education.

In terms of faculty development, the number of colleges and universities setting up special education majors grew to 80, with a steady increase in both enrollment and graduate numbers. The number of full-time teachers of special education increased from 50,300 in 2015 to 66,200 in 2020, up 31.6 percent.

The central government has raised the benchmark quota of public funds for disabled students in the compulsory education stage to 6,000 yuan ($928.55) per capita. Every year, 410 million yuan is set aside as special education subsidies.

Compulsory education and senior high school - a total of 12 years of education - are free to disabled students with financial difficulties. The conditions of special education schools havebeen effectively improved as well.

In 2016, the Ministry issued curriculum standards on special education covering visually impaired, hearing impaired and intellectually disabled students during the compulsory education stage.

Training and teaching material compilation were carried out and documents disseminated in a bid to promote integrated education, which helped increase the number of disabled students attending regular schools to 439,000 in 2020, up 83.6 percent from 2015. That means 50 percent of disabled students went to regular schools.

Zhu said that the ministry will launch new plans to render moresupport on policies, finance and programs in order to achieve equal and high-quality education for disabled children.

Efforts will be made to perfect the special education system, including further extending special education to preschool and senior high school stages. More focus will be put on care and education for children with autism.

More efforts will go toward in-depth integration between special education and regular and vocational education. A complete special education resource system at the national, provincial, municipal, and county levels will be built to render more support and enhance the quality of special education.

The guarantee mechanism for special education will be improved as well. Subsidy funds and the benchmark quota of public funds per capita for disabled students will be further enhanced.

The construction of standard special education schools and barrier-free campuses will be strengthened. More training will be provided to special education teachers to enhance their teaching skills.