Toffoli suspends decree of the new educational policy for students with disabilities | Politics

The individual decision must be submitted to the full STF on the 11th. The suspension was determined based on an unconstitutionality action filed by the PSB against the decree issued in early October.

The decree provides, among other things, for the creation of specialized classes and schools, which serve only students with disabilities. Experts point to the risk that this separation weakens the inclusion of students in living with children without disabilities.

In the minister’s opinion, the decree can serve as a basis for policies that weaken the “inclusion imperative” of students with disabilities.

“I observe that Decree No. 10.502 / 2020 may end up supporting public policies that weaken the imperative to include students with disabilities, global developmental disorders, and high abilities or giftedness in the regular school system,” he says.

Last week, the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation (AGU) defended in the STF that another similar action, presented by the Sustainability Network, should be rejected. In the technical note sent to the Court, the AGU denied that the policy would represent a “policy of segregation” for students with disabilities.

“The claim that the decree in question would be executing a policy of segregating students with disabilities from the rest by providing educational services through specialized schools does not deserve to flourish,” says the AGU.

With the signing of the new policy, the Ministry of Education changed a rule adopted since 2008.

The decree signed by President Jair Bolsonaro determined that the federal government, states, and municipalities must offer “educational institutions designed to provide educational assistance to special education students who do not benefit, in their development, from being included in regular schools. inclusive and that present demand for multiple and continuous support ”.

Experts in the field considered that the change represents a setback in a 30-year struggle for social inclusion. They understood that the new decree weakens the right of the disabled person to attend ordinary school. Following the criticism, the PSB and the Network summoned the Supreme Court in different actions.

In the decision, Toffoli says that the decree proposes an “innovation in the legal system” in relation to the 1996 Law on National Educational Bases and Guidelines.

According to the minister, the text published in October “is not limited to detailing the terms of the regulated law, but promotes the implementation of a new national educational policy, with the establishment of institutes, services and obligations, which, until then, have not they were included. ” in the educational discipline of the country “.

Toffoli also points out that the Constitution does not preclude the existence of specialized schools, since it establishes that special education will occur “preferably” in the regular school system.

The minister says, however, that inclusive education is the result of a “process of social achievement” and that, therefore, the exception should not become the norm.

“The paradigm of inclusive education, therefore, is the result of a process of social achievements that eliminated the idea of ​​segregated experience of people with disabilities or special needs to insert them in the context of the community. Thus, despite living with the implementation of specialized schools and classes, it does not support the transformation of the exception into a rule, since it would mean a regression in the protection of the rights of these individuals, ”says Toffoli.