STATEMENT

Quererla es Crearla, a social movement that brings together international scientific evidence with research and citizen activism, negatively assesses the Draft Decree regulating attention to diversity and the organization of educational and professional guidance in the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands 

• The document starts, appropriately, from the consideration of the fundamental right to education as the right to inclusive education.
• However, its articles contradict this pillar, which is supported by higher-ranking legal texts: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the LOMLOE, and the LODE.
• The text is not based on international scientific evidence regarding inclusive education, assuming the necessity of segregation to address the diversity of the student body.
• For all these reasons, we request the transformation of the draft to make it consistent with inclusive education as the right of all students to live together and learn amidst differences.

May 16, 2025.- Academic researchers, school guidance professionals, teachers, and families of the social movement Quererla es Crearla have developed an analysis of the draft decree presented by the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training, Physical Activity and Sports of the Government of the Canary Islands, which aims to replace the 2018 decree. This analysis acknowledges the effort in drafting a preamble based on inclusion not only as a principle of the education system but as a fundamental human right, but negatively assesses the articles, which establish rules that perpetuate the flaws of the medical approach, hindering the path to inclusive education.

The document is based on the logic of identifying students’ educational needs, rather than focusing on the barriers to presence, learning, and participation, as pointed out by scientific research, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (ratified by Spain in 2008), and UNESCO. The focus on detecting students’ needs implies questioning the children themselves, instead of developing proposals that allow for the analysis of educational conceptions, relationships, teaching methodologies, organizational proposals, policies, materials, groupings, etc., that prevent certain children from learning and feeling part of the mainstream classroom community.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has clearly stated that our education system violates “gravely and systematically” the rights of some people: “In practice, the system focuses on the student’s deficits and deficiencies, and results in the stigmatization of the student as uneducable in the general education system. Instead of exploring all possibilities for the student’s inclusion, diagnoses prevent mainstream schools from providing support measures and reasonable accommodations.” (UN, 2017, p.10)

In this regard, it must be highlighted that the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands has stood out in recent years for the expansion of its network of special education schools and for having fostered a huge increase in special education units within mainstream schools (called Aulas Enclave in the Canary Islands). Taking into account that the LOMLOE established in its Fourth Additional Provision:

 “The Government, in collaboration with the educational Administrations, shall develop a plan so that, within a period of ten years, in accordance with Article 24.2.e) of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and in compliance with the fourth Sustainable Development Goal of the 2030 Agenda, mainstream schools have the necessary resources to be able to attend to students with disabilities under the best conditions”. 

This implies advancing in the provision of mainstream education to converge the two current parallel systems. However, the Canary Islands Educational Community, since the approval of the LOMLOE, has not only failed to reduce student segregation, but in three academic years has created a new special education center and 100 new special education classrooms, with the second-highest growth in the entire state in relation to the number of students. 1 These policies, which are reinforced by the draft decree, go against SDG 4, UNESCO guidelines, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the LOMLOE, and the Organic Law regulating the Right to Education (LODE), which in its article 6.3.e incorporates among the basic rights of students the right “to an inclusive and quality education.” It may seem obvious, but it is necessary to say that segregated education cannot be inclusive. 

In practice, this situation is leading to an enormous sense of helplessness for many families, who see how the right to inclusive education of their sons and daughters with no other option but to go to court to report the administration that should be the guarantor of it. Segregation in the Canary Islands begins in Early Childhood Education. All of this will be reported to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for its follow-up to the Inquiry on Spain, which in its latest report was categorical:

“The Committee is concerned […] about the persistence over time of segregated special education, whether in special schools or in special classrooms (specific units or classrooms) in mainstream schools.”

In addition to the guidelines cited in the higher legal framework that regional legislation must take into account, international scientific evidence from more than half a century ago is very consistent and growing, supporting the benefits of inclusive education over education in segregated environments. We have developed this point extensively in
this point in https://tinyurl.com/yqvhnblv

Advancing in this direction requires that the draft decree stop fueling exclusionary schooling modalities. This means that it must prevent any child from being referred to specific centers or classrooms from now on, thus beginning a process of adapting policies, cultures, and practices to make inclusive education effective within the timeframe that
as established by the LOMLOE. Furthermore, it is necessary to facilitate the return to the mainstream classroom for those who are not currently enrolled in one, should they wish to do so.

A profound transformation of psycho-pedagogical assessments is also required. You will soon be able to find an alternative model published by Editorial Octaedro, which turns them into a tool that promotes inclusive education. The purpose, function, and suitability of curricular adaptations must be reviewed. It is the adaptation of the school system as a whole, of the school in particular, and of each class that must be transformed. It is the culture, policy, and practices that must be reviewed in order to stop making dichotomous differentiations that exclude. In any case, the competition of adaptations curricular requirements cannot limit the possibility of obtaining the corresponding qualification in compulsory education.

The draft must decouple psycho-pedagogical assessment from the provision of resources. Children cannot be instrumentalized to obtain resources. Labeling to address needs is a contradiction. Every population has a percentage of students with disabilities, and this must be distributed across all schools, which is why every school must have the necessary resources available.

Advancing in inclusive education requires stopping referrals to segregated modalities and focusing on the flexibilization of the curriculum, the revision of the didactic proposal, the transformation of teaching-learning processes, and the diversification of assessment proposals. To do this, schools must be supported to develop processes of reflection and action research, counting on the active participation of families and students, opening the school to the community beyond the school walls. This is what international scientific evidence has been showing as successful actions to promote inclusive education, which implies that training proposals must foster collaborative and participatory Action Research processes for school communities and teachers in particular.

For all these reasons, we request the transformation of the draft to make it consistent with inclusive education as the right of all students to live together and learn amidst differences. Only a truly inclusive school, in which students are not separated into special classrooms or schools, has the potential to build a more equitable society that challenges current forms of exclusion and where human diversity is valued in all its forms.