Sign For Change National Report

The educational content and the changemaking potential of the Deaf children in Europe

What is the national report?

A summary of focus groups conducted by Sign for Changemaking members that aim to:
Identify the opportunities and barriers within the existing educational programs
To gather infromation for actions that support the personal development, confidence, innovation and changemaking potential of Deaf people.

The focus groups

Teachers and professionals in each partner country discussed about:
The main teaching methods, learning contents, and policies for supporting deaf children in education.
Good practices of educational initiatives for Deaf changemakers at a global level.
How successful initiatives have been achieved to develop the changemaking capacities of deaf children.

Key findings

Low commitment by administrations to invest financially in staff and educational support for Deaf education.
Teachers and support staff often present a low sign language knowledge.
Sign Language pre-school teaching is at the discretion of the families of deaf children.
In state administrations and schools there is a low diffusion of Deaf culture.

Key points

Promote a standardized public administration of Deaf education policies.
Make national Sign Language teaching mandatory for deaf children in school and pre- school environments.
Make the study of Sign Language mandatory for educational professionals working with deaf students to ensure accessibility and effective communication in the school setting.
Include in the university curricula exhaustive courses in Deaf pedagogy.
Include in ordinary school curricula the teaching of Sign Language as a second language of choice.
Promote the role of the Deaf counselor, who is an expert in deaf culture, to guide and support deaf children and provide them with virtuous life models to be inspired by.

Download the full report

Click the button below to download the full Sign For Change National Report. Τhe report will soon be translated into all the languages of the project.

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