MA Programme “Special education”

Object-Purpose

The MA Programme “Special education” has as its object the research, study and implementation of methods for Education and Special Education.

Purpose of the Programme is the provision of a high level postgraduate education in the scientific field of special education and the training of postgraduate students on issues related to special education, inclusive education for disabled students and disability studies.

More specifically, the MA Programme aims at:
– the creation of scientists able to participate in research, study and program development, and the development and implementation of educational policies and practices that focus on combating social discrimination emerging within educational institutions.
– the training of specialist scientists and educators to meet the needs of schools, central public education bodies, such as the Ministry of Education, Research Centers, local and regional public education bodies, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations and private institutions, who will provide work in the areas of special education for people with disabilities.

Goals

The MA Programme “Special Education” aims to provide postgraduate students with theoretical knowledge, comprehensive specialization, necessary skills and abilities for wider scientific, research or professional activity, as well as critical thinking about the creative reading of everyday life through scientific dialogue. The Programme emphasizes on research practice and educational internship.

Graduates of the MA have knowledge, skills and competences in scientific research and professional practice that allow both the production of research work and the critical evaluation of its quality and the use of its results in professional practice.

More specifically, the MA “Special Education” aims at:
(a) promoting the educational and social inclusion of disability-affected population groups, through specialized knowledge and practices,
(b) combating the exclusion of disabled pupils at all levels of education,
(c) promoting the need for the creation of inclusive education structures in the context of general education,
d) improving the provision of personnel for Special Education Schools with graduates of the Program who are entitled to be appointed to the public sector, because of the pedagogical competence, specialized knowledge and recognized relevance/affiliation by the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs and by the Institute of Educational Policy and also to public diagnostic, therapeutic and other bodies.

Graduate students of the MA Programme “Special Education” acquire knowledge:
(a) for the diagnostic insight of disabilities,
(b) the social, cultural and political dimension of disability,
(c) on modern approaches to education and social inclusion of disabled people,
(d) for the research methodology used in special education, in inclusive education and in the field of disability studies.

The sectors in the labor market benefiting from the MA “Special Education” and interested in the absorption of its graduates are:
– Bodies and educational policy-making organizations (eg IEP).
– Ministries such as the Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, the Ministry of Labor, Social Security and Social Solidarity.
– Educational institutions in the public and private sectors, institutions and social inclusion structures.
– Social services.
– Non-governmental organizations dealing with the rights of the disabled.
– International organizations defending the rights of disabled people and inclusive education.

Establishment

Brief history

The Program was originally established in the academic year 2001-2002, as an option within the transnational program “Education and Human Rights” jointly organized by the DECE and the Institute of Education of the University of London. Until the year 2004 it was funded by the EPEAEK action.

It became an independent program, organized solely by the DECE, in the academic year 2008-2009 (Government Gazette 2051, Issue Β’, 03/10/2008). The latest revision took place in 2014 in order to reform the curriculum (Government Gazette 2464, Issue Β’, 16/09/2014).

Since the beginning of its operation, the aim of the MA Program in “Special Education” was the specialization of postgraduate students in issues of education and special education. The main aim of the Program is to offer high level postgraduate studies taking into account the new scientific concerns for specialized Το knowledge in specific areas of education.

Reestablishment

Since the academic year 2018-2019, the Department of Early Childhood Education of the Faculty of Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens organizes and operates the MA Program “Special Education”, in accordance with the provisions of Law 4485/2017 (Government Gazette 2432, Issue B’, 26/06/2018).