Cronograma de fases y construcción del proyecto

Within the last two decades, the Saudi government has focused attention on promoting the rights of disabled people to receive their education in the mainstream educational setting and to actively participate in society. As a result, two pieces of legislation were passed during this period to ensure that disabled people receive their civil rights. Unfortunately, the vast majority of regulations/articles stated in these acts have been suspended to date. As Alquraini (2011), Al-Jadid (2013) and Aldabas (2015) clearly put it, although laws relevant to disabled people were passed nearly 17 years ago, they are not taken seriously and not actively enforced which prevents disabled people from obtaining their legal and civil rights as Saudi citizens, including access to mainstream education and employment. The two laws are: The Disability Code and the DRRSEIP. Each of these laws is discussed below.

2.6.1 The Disability Code

This act was passed according to the Royal Decree number (٣٧/م—37/M) in 2000, as the first legislative act for disabled people in Saudi Arabia. This act comprises 16 articles. The articles state that all disabled people are entitled, through government organisations, to free and appropriate prevention, care, habilitation, mainstream education and employment opportunities in the same way as everyone else in the society. The educational opportunity warranted by this regulation includes easy access to pre, primary, middle, and secondary mainstream schools and vocational and postsecondary education. The code calls for schools to regularly evaluate their curricula and teaching and learning methods to make sure that they are suitable and responsive to the requirements of all pupils. It also supports the inclusion of disabled people in all aspects of life to the maximum extent possible. Further, it declares the

establishment of a supreme council of affairs of disabled people. The major responsibility of the supreme council is to coordinate with relevant authorities such as the MoE to provide academics and professionals with ongoing professional development and opportunities to attend and to organise workshops and conferences to exchange expertise with other people, nationally and internationally, in order to improve their knowledge and professional quality and keep them up-to-date with the development of theories and practices in the disability field (Disability Code, 2000). The second Act which I will turn to now focuses more on disabled people’s educational and placement options than any other aspects of their lives.

2.6.2 The DRRSEIP

In 2001, the Saudi MoE instituted the DRRSEIP as a guide to further ensure that disabled people are provided with high-quality education and social interaction opportunities in mainstream schools, as the act states, to the maximum extent possible (Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001). The DRRSEIP was constituted by a number of Saudi academics and policy-makers who graduated from American universities with MA or PhD degrees (Alquraini, 2011). They developed this document after reviewing American disability-related legislation such as the EHA 1975 and the IDEA 1990 (Alquraini, 2011). The DRRSEIP includes 11 major sections (see Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001 for detail). A brief summary of the content of this document is provided below.

This document starts by setting out the definition of terms (76 terms) that are used in the document. These terms are related to disability, disabled people, rehabilitation, special education and inclusive education. Section two focuses on the aims of special education and how these aims can be achieved. Section three provides in-depth account of the principles of special and inclusive education and article 18 of this section emphasises that mainstream

schools are too often the most suitable educational and social placement for disabled people. This article suggests two placement options for disabled pupils within mainstream schools: 1) A mainstream classroom with a resource room support; and 2) a self-contained classroom (the focus of this study—see section 1.1 for details). These two options are actively implemented in Saudi mainstream schools. However, this document emphasises that disabled pupils educated in option one should spend most of their school day in the mainstream classroom (instead of the resource room) and pupils who attend self-contained classrooms (second option) should have the opportunity to engage and interact with their non-disabled peers in academic and non-academic activities whenever possible. Moreover, article 27 of section three maintains that mainstream schools must provide pupils labelled disabled with admission opportunities equal to those who are perceived as non-disabled and to change existing conditions that could support otherwise (Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001). Further, this document demands mainstream schools to educate pupils labelled as ‘severely’ intellectually disabled in mainstream classrooms to the maximum extent possible (Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001, p. 24).

Section eight sets out detailed description about how school professionals can ‘diagnose’ people labelled as intellectually disabled. The information includes the definition and goal of measurement and diagnosis, their rules and foundations, the interdisciplinary team that could participate in this operation, and the procedures by which to conduct it. Section nine also discusses in detail what is known as the ‘Individualized Education Programmes’ (IEPs), including the foundations of IEPs and why ‘special’ educators should conduct IEPs with children who do not ‘normally’ function (Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001).

Finally, the DRRSEIP encourages teachers to provide modifications to academic and non- academic activities, to remove disabling barriers related to children’ accessibility to information and assessments, and to ensure the emotional well-being of all children. To exemplify, the document suggests that during the assessment, all pupils should be materially and psychologically supported to succeed through, for example, the provision of suitable and preferred testing format (e.g. Braille for students labelled with blindness), personal assistants, sufficient time and an overall environment that respond to the diverse requirements of all learners. Further, this act asks non-disabled people, especially students and school professionals, to use formal names when calling disabled children, stating that other discriminatory names or labels are forbidden (Ministry of Education-Saudi Arabia, 2001). To conclude, this document strictly prohibits discrimination against disabled people in education and schools; therefore, DRRSEIP should be actively practiced to eliminate or, at least reduce, the different forms of disabling barriers and practices in Saudi schools.

Summary of the Chapter

This chapter provides a general overview about the context of this study and locates this research within that context. It presents a general account of Saudi Arabia in terms of its founding, location, boundaries, population, economy, constitution and important cities. The chapter then discusses the Saudi culture and background and how the religion of Islam influences the country’s constitution, institutions, education and the daily life of Saudi people as a whole. Subsequently, the administrative structure and historical development of the Saudi education system are discussed. This revealed that the Saudi people used to have no educational institutions before the 1930s, in contrast to today with schools present almost everywhere across the country. This chapter then set out detailed information about the development of education for people labelled disabled in Saudi Arabia. This development has

undergone different stages, starting from being denied the right to any education prior to the 1960s until they become part of the mainstream school system. Despite such development in terms of granting disabled people their right to education, however, they still suffer from discrimination, oppression and exclusion in special schools as well as within mainstream schools which unfortunately reflect, as Goodley and Runswick-Cole (2011, p. 602) put it, “the dominant culture of disablism”. After estimating the rate of people labelled disabled in Saudi Arabia, this chapter concluded with the policies and regulations relating to disabled people, particularly their education and placements options.

Chapter 3: Theorising Inclusion, Disability and the Label of Intellectual Disability