Special Education in Ukraine

In Ukraine, formal higher education programs for individuals who wish to teach children with disabilities do not exist.  Teachers are drawn from general education teacher training programs.  They receive no specialized training or guidance in the education of children who are deaf, blind, have cognitive disabilities, autism, etc.  In many ways and through no fault of their own, these teachers do their jobs blindly and inefficiently.  I am sure most of them do sincerely care about their students, and they want to be effective educators, but they are forced to learn as they go, a rather inefficient and ineffectual way to teach.  

In the United States young college and university students who have decided to become teachers can choose whatever field they wish to study and then enroll in the appropriate teacher education program.   There are programs for students who want to teach children who are blind, deaf or have multiple disabilities.  The University of Kansas has an outstanding autism spectrum disorders program, for example, while Minot State University has an excellent early childhood special education program.  A wide variety of high quality special education programs like these are available throughout the United States for perspective teachers.  Students here in Ukraine do not have the same options, much to the detriment of children with disabilities. 

While easily viewed as a weakness, the lack of special education programs at Ukrainian universities is also a strength in the form of potential, incredible potential.  It is my hope that over the next school year, I will be able to impress upon professors and university administrators the need to develop and implement a high quality program for preparing special education teachers in Ukraine.  Program development in higher education is a long, taxing and arduous process, but if only we could get the process started now, get the ball rolling and once it is rolling, it will develop its own unstoppable momentum, so that the development of a teacher education program can’t help but come to eventual fruition.