The project "Tools for Inclusive Education" aims to enhance the knowledge and competences of educators of any discipline in the fields of Learning Disorders, promote their professional development and supply them with tools they can use in an educational context, aligned with their actual professional development needs. The objectives of the project are to share educational policies, identify the training needs of educators working with learners affected by Learning Disorders, including foreign students, in partner countries. It will develop supportive materials- a toolkit for educators- which can be used with cases of students with perception, attention and concentration difficulties, such as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder or Linguistic difficulties, such as Severe Reading Difficulty, Dysphasia, Dyslexia or Asperger’s. This will be in the form of a handbook, consisting of practical resources and tools to support practitioners across Europe and beyond and will be translated in all partner languages. The project will also create a professional development course which will enhance educators' skills, improve the support they provide to their students and promote the social inclusion of students with learning disorders. The overarching idea of this project is that of equality and social inclusion in education, promoting diversity and non-discrimination. It will foster a more modern, dynamic, committed and professional environment, supporting teachers to integrate good practices and new methods into their daily activities. It will strengthen the professional development of educators, educational leaders and support staff and it will allow them to better deal with inclusion and diversity, through the use of more diverse and more adapted teaching and training work styles. The impact on educators will be significant: They will improve and update their teaching methods, competences and skills by making use of the project's tools. They will exchange good practices on ways to support students with learning disorders, based on the centrality of the learner, which will bring new ideas and motivations to their work. Foreign students benefit from the project's activities, as the project supports their studies and integration into the university community. The project's results will be shared with Higher education Institutions, researchers, teacher associations, youth associations, policy-makers, public entities and other stakeholders active in education and social inclusion policies, as well as relevant local, national and international networks, students with special learning needs and associations supporting people with Perception, attention and concentration difficulties. The project's results will remain available indefinitely on partners' websites and social media. All those involved or interested in inclusive education and educational tools that will facilitate the inclusion of students with learning disorders will be free to download and use the Handbook as Open Education Resource, as well as to attend the training courses and exchange good practices with colleagues on social media.
The partnership wanted to tackle stereotypes and change attitudes towards SLDs, equip the HE teaching staff with knowledge and practical tools to reinforce their skills of designing, implementing and evaluating inclusive education. To do this, ToFIE also needed to study educational policies and good practises in the partner countries.
In a way, special learning disorders (SLD) are not so special: depending on the definition, it is estimated that 5-20% of all people suffer of some kind of learning disorder. Yet students with SLDs are often excluded of higher education . In Tools for inclusive education our partnership wanted to prote equal opportunities of education and make these potential students visible by providing their teachers and other teaching staff of tertiary education with tools that embrace inclusion. The survey and the study carried out in the beginning of the project (Needs analysis and Good practices report) pointed out that teachers in higher education (HE) are aware of the existance of specific learning difficulties, but they lack the means of supporting the students. A prominent detail in in the survey and study findings was that an immigrant student with a learning disorder is minority within a minority, almost a blind spot in HE, and this is something that ToFIE has also focused on.