Special Education In Canada

2263 Words5 Pages

Is there a clear research problem/question and what is it? Why it is considered important?
The rationale, according to the author of the research, is to make a comparison of strategies and delivery of education for students in the province of Alberta, Canada and the country of Finland, in the European Union. Unlike Finland, as an independent country, Alberta is only one of the provinces in Canada. However, the situation in governing the education is comparable between Alberta and Finland - this is because the obligation of education in Canada rests almost entirely with provincial legislation as a federal department or office of education does not exist. There are several contributing reasons that make this research problem to be considered …show more content…

Compare to other compulsory school students, students who are in need of special education is eligible to receive 1.5-fold funding while students who meets the categories of severe disabilities will be receiving 2.5- or 4- fold funding. This funding strategy that is based on the students who have disabilities is known as ‘bounty funding’. In other words, a school will receive more funding if the school has more students who meet the 14 categories of disabilities. However, in the year of 2010, this funding system was changed from the model of combined base and bounty funding to only base funding model. The reason behind of the change is there is no extra funding for any student with special educational …show more content…

As mentioned above, there is no any clear hypothesis for this research. However, there is a research problem for this research paper - ‘Different Strategies, Different Outcomes? The History and Trends for the Inclusive and Special Education in Alberta (Canada) and in Finland’. The author has discussed about the different funding and education strategies which are used by Alberta (Canada) and Finland have caused different outcomes for students with special educational needs in these two countries. The differences of the funding and education strategies are influenced by the different local practices and policies.

For instance, this research paper indicates the variations of cultural and local political between Alberta and Finland have caused different outcomes for their funding strategies and education system. On one hand, Alberta is a typical settlers’ society with a multicultural population. Therefore, there are many different opinions from each education organization, including the special education. Consequently, they are forced to get the final agreement based on the presumed maximal objectivity among numerous stakeholders. The current education ideology in Alberta is it is necessary to dismantle segregative education and focus on inclusive education. On the other hand, the objective of special education in Finland is ‘to support pupils’ growth towards human and ethically responsible membership of society’ has been accepted

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