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PART Recent Trends and Developments in Government Policies in Education, Science and Culture

In order to help mentally and physically handicapped children develop their own potentials to the fullest and enable them to live independently within society, special education schools for the blind, the deaf or the otherwise handicapped have kept their class size small to provide students with careful instruction relevant to the types and degrees of their handicaps, as well as to their developmental stages and characters.

In recent years educational authorities have become required: to cope with an increase in the ratio of children with serious and multiple handicaps; to enrich educational programs for children with less serious handicaps; to increase early childhood education programs so as to enable handicapped children to overcome many of the restrictions of their handicaps as early as possible; to enrich vocational education programs and career guidance services which are aimed at contributing to the social independence of handicapped children; and to expand the access of handicapped children to upper secondary education.

To meet these requirements, the Ministry has been striving to accomplish the following new tasks: to provide better guidance to handicapped children and their parents so that they may attend appropriate schools relevant to the types and degrees of their disabilities; to promote the public's understanding and recognition toward mentally and physically handicapped children; to upgrade the quality of teaching staff and other personnel at special education schools, to further promote the establishment of upper secondary departments at special education schools; and to improve guidance of handicapped children by integrated arrangements which allow them to attend both regular classes and special classes according to their handicap.