Európsky ombudsman

Dear Sir,

European Schools - SEN Programme

I refer to my comments of yesterday and would add some further remarks.

The Commission writes:

"Because each case is examined individually, there is no individual budgetary restriction for the provision of services to students with disabilities."

This may be the theory as you read it in the SEN rules 811-D-1999 FR.doc which I have sent you. But in practice the European Schools have put a ceiling on the number of hours of SEN-support that they will give an individual pupil. In Luxembourg the school head, Mr. Feix, uses a ceiling of 8 clock hours a week of individual support by a SEN teacher to any single pupil. If the child cannot cope in the school with 8 hours of support, it is told to leave the school. If the pupil could cope in the school but only with 12 hours weekly of support, the Head will nonetheless refuse to break his self-imposed ceiling, and the pupil will be told to leave (for example the case (see my email of yesterday) of the Downs Syndrome child in the nursery section who ought to have be given more hours of support in the class room thus taking the pressure off the class teacher who felt the child to be a burden even though it is an extremely well-functioning child).

I would refer to your draft recommendation in complaint 1391/2002/JMA and point out to the Commission that it is much cheaper to allow pupils with learning disabilities to attend the European Schools even with 16 clock hours per week of individual SEN suppport than to have these children of EU officials attend private schools (perhaps even with individual support) with high schools fees which the Commission will then have to pay as the Ombudsman recommends.

By the way, when my son started in the first primary with SEN support way back in 1995, he was given 18 clock hours weekly of individual support by a SEN teacher. Those were the days when the schools tried to keep the SEN programme secret to save the money for other purposes and only the best informed language sections of the school managed to have their pupils with learning disabilities benefit from the SEN programme.

The schools are applying the SEN rules in a more and more restrictive way and this restrictive approach is clearly to be seen in Mr. Rieff's report on the SEN programme which I sent you as attachment yesterday.

So instead of doing more to integrate pupils with learning disabilities the school administrators are trying to squeeze the children out.

I can tell you much more if you wish. I am in the centre of it all here in Luxembourg.

Yours truly,

Birgitte Holst