91998E0173

WRITTEN QUESTION E-0173/98 by Mary Banotti (PPE) to the Council (6 February 1998)

Subject: Children with learning difficulties

Could the Council please state why the UK Presidency has made no reference in its programme to providing for the needs of children with specific learning disabilities when the UK Presidency is focussed on a 'People's Europe'. Surely the child is at the very basis of a 'People's Europe'?

When the UK Government has just issued a Green Paper totally revolutionizing its policy on mainstreaming - is it not a very serious omission from the Presidency programme?

Some 18% of the European Union population experience specific learning difficulties. An estimated 40% of prison inmates are proven dyslexic. In order to enhance the social inclusion, welfare and employment prospects throughout the European Union of children and young adults with specific learning difficulties - does the Council not agree that preventative measures must be taken?

If so, what measures, short and long-term, does the Council, in general and the UK Presidency in particular, envisage?

Answer (27 April 1998)

The promotion of equality of opportunity in education as well as in training and at work is an essential part of the debate on employability which is at the core of the Presidency's education and social affairs agenda. Addressing the needs of children with specific learning difficulties is an implicit element of the principle of equality of opportunity in education.

Moreover, as part of the Presidency's programme a conference on Special Educational Needs in schools has been organized, taking place in Windsor on 7 May 1998. The aim of this conference, which is intended for experts in the field, is to explore comparisons between the provision in Member States and is linked with the work of the new European Agency for Special Educational Needs. Indeed, it is believed that there is much to be learned in general from the exchange of ideas and good practice in different school systems of the Member States, as, for example, within the context of the SOCRATES programme.