Inclusive education in Ukraine: current state and development prospects

Abstract

Today, inclusive education is becoming one of the priority areas of Ukrainian educational policy. At the stage of its modernization, interest in the integration of children with special educational needs into the general educational environment has increased significantly. The modern education system fully accepts only those who meet its certain requirements, that is, children with standard capabilities, who are able to study according to the general program for everyone and achieve and demonstrate high results of their academic performance. Inclusive education allows children with special educational needs to study in a regular school or kindergarten. In specialized boarding schools, children cannot communicate freely with their peers and develop fully. This form of education helps to adapt the learning environment for a person with special needs. An inclusive educational environment is an environment where all learners, regardless of their educational needs, are able to learn more effectively, improve their social competence, improve communication skills, and also feel part of the general community. Each group of children with special educational needs has both general, characteristic for all, limitations of life activities, and special, inherent only to it and to each child individually. Сreation of socio-psychological conditions of an inclusive educational environment in a general secondary education institution actualizes another important problem - the training of highly qualified teaching staff who will be able to effectively use the acquired knowledge, skills and abilities in practice, actively develop and implement innovative methods of work in the conditions of an inclusive educational space.This article presents various aspects of the study of social and psychological conditions of inclusive educational environment, characterized the regulatory framework of inclusive education, substantiated structural components of the educational environment, its properties and principles of construction, analyzed indicators of psychological safety of the educational environment, specificity of its organization.