Tiku

As a totally blind person, I find the renewed argument for segregating children with disabilities into special schools deeply troubling. Germany’s AfD has argued that specialised schools should be retained and that they should once again become the norm for pupils with special educational needs. My objection is less about the political party than about what this idea represents. The world should be moving in precisely the opposite direction. Inclusive education is not about putting a disabled child into a mainstream classroom and hoping for the best. It means making mainstream education accessible, providing reasonable accommodation, specialist teachers and individualised support, and enabling disabled and non-disabled children to grow up together. That is also the direction of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 24 recognises the right to inclusive education, and the UN disability-rights committee has specifically urged Germany to move from the special-education model towards quality inclusive mainstream education. I speak about this from lived experience. As a blind person, I have to live, travel, work and interact in the same society as everyone else. Today, many disabled people must also learn to live independently. Education should prepare us for that world, not create a separate world for us. There may be children with complex individual requirements who need intensive specialist support. But specialist support does not have to mean segregation as the default. The answer to inadequate inclusion is to make inclusion work better, not to retreat from it. Making segregation the norm again would not be progress. It would be turning the clock backwards.