For people with any type of disability
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Education

Educational Structure

Concerning the education of children and adolescents with a disability a lot have been changed in the Netherlands the last twenty years. In the eighties of the former age mostly all the children and adolescents with a disability were going to a school for special education. The amount of schools was growing and the integration possibility was at a low standard. The Dutch National Government started a process of general integration in Education as well as in Sport. Nowadays 75% of that amount of children and adolescents with a disability are integrated in regular schools (primary and secondary education).

There are still four clusters of schools for children and adolescents with a disability:
Cluster 1: for children and adolescents with a visual disability.
Cluster 2: for children and adolescents with a communicative disability (hearing and/or speech).
Cluster 3: for children and adolescents with a mental retardation or physical disabilities.
Cluster 4: for children and adolescents with psychiatric or behavior problems.
Special Education is organized in so-called Regional Experts Centers (REC). These centers take care of special education, ambulant aid to the teachers in regular schools and diagnosis.

If a child needs a kind of special education the parents can make a choice between regular and special education. Any child who needs special care can get a pupil fixed budget (the so called backpack money). The amount of money is decided by an Indication Commission. With that money the parents can more or less buy the special education, granted by or the regular, or the special school. The final choice is made by the parents. They are responsible for the education and integration of the child.
More information can be found on ‘internetwijzer’.

Education for teachers PE and APA

In all the five Universities for Physical Education (Amsterdam, Den Haag, Groningen, Tilburg and Zwolle) the students can specialize in APA for schools for special education (curriculum amount in between 10-20 ECTS). After they finished the bachelor they can continue in specialize themselves in treating and helping children and adolescents with a disability (Professional master, 60 ECTS including practice; Tilburg and Zwolle). In Zwolle is a special bachelor (240 ECTS) for APA and Psychomotricity. In that education students are trained for the field of Rehabilitation and APA.