The Special Educator

National statistics show frightening rates of students whose special needs imply specialized programs, different in type from those offered in regular education.

The diagnosis of the reality of Special Education in the country points to the need to increase the training process in this area, due to the gigantic dimensions that the problem assumes, when also considering the imbalance between the contingent of those who require special care and the contingent of those who are able to provide it.

Another reason to invest in the training of personnel in this area is that there is an advanced production in the area of Special Education, demonstrated in the scientific literature, whose knowledge and technological resources are not the domain of the area of Education in general.

The advances achieved in the last decades of national research in this area have not completely eliminated many of the deep gaps that exist in scientific knowledge, nor, in particular, our delay in relation to values, philosophy of action and public policies. Thus, we have important knowledge (but still insufficient) to support the continuity of scientific investigation, in search of overcoming the gaps that still exist.

The need to prepare teaching staff for the Special Education Qualification courses was followed by new demands for training or improving human resources in this area (MEC, 1994).

Initiatives in the sphere of educational policy in the country have recognized the need to ensure, in the training of professionals from the most diverse areas, graduates of Brazilian universities, the development of conceptions and sensitivity in relation to the rights and needs of people with disabilities, and, to this, they have recommended the inclusion, in the curricula of undergraduate courses, of subjects or contents related to Special Education. However, the lack of properly prepared higher education professors and accessible teaching materials has made it difficult to implement these recommendations. This is yet another potential area of action for graduates of graduate courses in Special Education..

In addition to these factors, the Inclusive Education proposal, which has been progressively adopted throughout the country, has added new demands for the training of human resources in this area, due to the need to prepare the entire educational community for the insertion of students in common schools.