Special Needs Education: Overview
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Special needs education concerns children and young young people with special educational requirements. These children and young young people have a right to special education. There is a special educational requirement for children and young people, where it is ascertained, that development is restricted or hazarded, or that they are unable to meet the usual school standards without special support. In addition, special needs education applies to children and young people, who are shown to have great difficulty in social competence, as well as in learning and performance abilities.
Types of Special Needs Schooling
The cantons are responsible for special needs schooling. The special needs schooling consists of
The cantons are responsible for special needs schooling. The special needs schooling consists of
 | Early childhood special education: this form of early education treats children with disabilities, with retardation, restrictions or hazarding of development. Backup support measures can be provided for children from birth up to a maximum of their second school year in the family. |
| Integrative schooling: full-time, or part-time integration of children or young people with special educational requirements in a regular school through special educational measures. |
| Special schooling: there are special schools which have specialised in providing a certain form of disability education, to treat learning- or behavioural disorders. Such special schools only take children and young people who need enhanced educational measures. Entry to such schools is subject to Cantonal official approval procedures. The measures can in addition be combined with care in boarding school institutions or with care in day school structures. |
| Educational-therapeutic care, such as logopaedics and psychomotoric-therapies: logopaedic care treats diagnosed disruptions of the verbal and written language, speaking, communication, speech flow and the voice, as well as dyslexia. Psychomotoric-therapies concern the correlation between awareness, feelings, thinking, movements and behaviour, as well as their physical expression. In both forms of educational-therapeutic care, the necessary therapeutic measures are planned, implemented and evaluated. |
Financial and legal conditions
The Federal Law on Overcoming the Inequalities affecting Handicapped People (LHand), in force since January 1st, 2004, guarantees equality of rights; Art. 20, paragraph 1, reads: "The cantons shall ensure that handicapped children and young people enjoy the benefit of a basic education adapted to their specific needs." Paragraph 2 reads: "They shall encourage the integration of handicapped children and young people in the regular school system through appropriate forms of schooling to the extent that it is possible and beneficial for the handicapped child or young person concerned."
Since January 1st, 2008 the Swiss cantons are responsible for the technical, legal and financial matters of special schooling of disabled children and young people, as well as for special needs educational measures. The invalidity insurance has withdrawn from the co-financing aspect and the associated regulative activities. The cantons thus regulate special schooling within the scope of an Inter-cantonal agreement concerning collaboration in special educational areas' in the form of a federal law (concordat). The cantons subscribing to such Concordat bind themselves to respect certain framework agreements. On the basis of this Concordat, each of the cantons will work out a special schooling concept, as a legal base for special needs education.
The Federal Law on Overcoming the Inequalities affecting Handicapped People (LHand), in force since January 1st, 2004, guarantees equality of rights; Art. 20, paragraph 1, reads: "The cantons shall ensure that handicapped children and young people enjoy the benefit of a basic education adapted to their specific needs." Paragraph 2 reads: "They shall encourage the integration of handicapped children and young people in the regular school system through appropriate forms of schooling to the extent that it is possible and beneficial for the handicapped child or young person concerned."
Since January 1st, 2008 the Swiss cantons are responsible for the technical, legal and financial matters of special schooling of disabled children and young people, as well as for special needs educational measures. The invalidity insurance has withdrawn from the co-financing aspect and the associated regulative activities. The cantons thus regulate special schooling within the scope of an Inter-cantonal agreement concerning collaboration in special educational areas' in the form of a federal law (concordat). The cantons subscribing to such Concordat bind themselves to respect certain framework agreements. On the basis of this Concordat, each of the cantons will work out a special schooling concept, as a legal base for special needs education.
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