Quality education for children with special education needs: challenges of the pandemic, war and digitalisation
Reply to Recommendation
| Doc. 16184
| 03 June 2025
- Author(s):
- Committee of Ministers
- Origin
- Adopted at the 1529th meeting
of the Ministers’ Deputies (28 May 2025). 2025 - Third part-session
- Reply to Recommendation
- : Recommendation 2278
(2024)
1. The Committee of
Ministers has carefully examined Parliamentary Assembly
Recommendation 2278 (2024) “Quality education for children with special education
needs: challenges of the pandemic, war and digitalisation” and has
forwarded it to the Steering Committee for Education (CDEDU), to
the Steering Committee for the Rights of the Child (CDENF) and to
the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) for information and
possible comments.
2. The Committee of Ministers shares the importance of a human
rights-based approach to the education of children with special
educational needs to make education accessible, adaptable and acceptable
to these children. It also supports a co-ordinated and comprehensive
approach to addressing their needs in the face of challenges such
as the pandemic, war and digitalisation and to address these challenges
in order to ensure equitable and inclusive education for all.
3. The Committee of Ministers recalls that the Council of Europe
Standing Conference of Ministers of Education, at its 26th Session
(28-29 September 2023), took decisive action adopting a series of
measures which are currently implemented. First, it adopted the
Resolution on “Education in Times of Crisis and Emergencies”, which
provides for the development of education resilience principles
in times of emergencies and crisis, and the creation of the Council
of Europe’s Toolkit for education in times of emergencies and crisis. The
Toolkit has been piloted and expected to be adopted by the CDEDU
Plenary session in March 2025.The Toolkit has been approved
by the CDEDU Plenary session in March 2025.
4. The Ministers also adopted the 2030 Council of Europe Education
Strategy, mentioned in the Parliamentary Assembly’s recommendation,
which emphasises the importance of inclusive education and the well-being
of all learners, including children with special education needs.
The Education Strategy underscores the need to ensure that all children,
regardless of their abilities and background, have access to quality education
and promotes a holistic approach to education. This includes adapting
educational environments and curricula to meet the diverse needs
of learners and creating a safe and supportive school environment where
all learners can thrive. Emphasis is placed on the importance of
mental health and psychological and pedagogical support services
within schools, which is crucial for children with special educational
needs. The Education Strategy also highlights the need for ongoing
professional development for educators to equip them with the skills
and knowledge necessary to support children with special educational
needs. This covers training in inclusive teaching practices and
understanding diverse learning needs.
5. As part of the action foreseen under Pillar 1 of the Education
Strategy “Renewing the democratic and civic mission of education”,
a Toolbox on the right to inclusive quality education for all learners,
especially the most marginalised and vulnerable, is being developed
and will be finalised in 2025. It will consist of decontextualised
materials on democratic school culture, developed by the Council
of Europe within the framework of various capacity-building projects
in member States. The aim is to make these resources available for
wider use to ensure inclusive school culture and appropriate individual
support at school and classroom levels, with the learner at the
centre. The Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for
Democratic Culture (RFCDC) also provides for a set of material promoting
education system that ensures equity and inclusion for all learners,
including those with special education needs. Destined to be used
by education policy makers and education practitioners, the framework
advocates for the adaptation of teaching methods and materials to
meet the diverse needs of all students.
6. As regard digitalisation of education, the Committee of Ministers
acknowledges that digital technologies, including artificial intelligence
(AI), are increasingly permeating educational settings, offering
unprecedented opportunities to learn and actively participate in
society to all children, but also raise new challenges to human rights,
inclusion, privacy and security, democratic participation and well-being.
In this regard, the Ministers adopted a resolution on the establishment
of a European Year of Digital Citizenship Education in 2025. Digital citizenship
education is fundamental to empower citizens and equip them with
the competences needed to harness the benefits of digital technologies
and become aware of their impact, and to learn to navigate responsibly,
safely and ethically in digital environments. The European Year
2025 will provide a strategic platform for key education stakeholders
from the public, private and civil sectors to collaborate and share practices
and pedagogical resources including for children with special needs.
7. AI has also significant potential to transform the education
of children with diverse special education needs by offering personalised
learning, assistive technologies and enhanced accessibility. With
this in mind, the Ministers adopted a resolution concerning the
development of a comprehensive and nuanced regulatory framework
that specifically addresses the use of AI systems in education in
order to ensure that AI systems enhance learning without causing
harm, protect the rights and interests of learners and educators,
and promote equitable access to educational opportunities.
8. The Committee of Ministers also recalls that several of the
objectives of the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the
Child (2022-2027) contribute to promoting equal opportunities and
social inclusion for all children in education (Objective 2), fighting
digital exclusion and ensuring an equal access to the digital environment,
including for children with disabilities (Objective 3), as well
as ensuring that participatory processes include children in vulnerable
situations (Objective 5). Under its Strategic Objective 6 “Children’s rights
in crisis and emergency situations”, the Strategy calls for “providing
guidance to protect children in a public health crisis, including
by supporting children’s resilience, ensuring that the right to
education and to participation are not overlooked, and by promoting
digital citizenship for children to strengthen their ability to respond
to crisis.” The Council of Europe will also continue to promote
the implementation of Recommendation
CM/Rec(2018)7 on Guidelines to respect, protect and fulfil the rights
of the child in the digital environment, and recalls its §12 calling
States to ensure access to the digital environment in educational
and other care settings for children in vulnerable situations.
9. More specifically, the issue of access to education in times
of war has been addressed by the Council of Europe Consultation
Group on the Children of Ukraine (CGU) with respect to children
of Ukraine in the member States. The CGU, a multilateral operational
co-operation platform between Council of Europe member States, the
EU, and relevant international organisations and civil society organisations,
has been set up with the support of the CDENF as a follow-up to
the “
Reykjavík
Declaration – United around our values”. During an exchange of views organised at its March
2024 plenary meeting on this issue, participants highlighted the diversity
of approaches taken by member States and agreed on the need to understand
the different approaches across States, including innovative practices
and ways in which national education systems provide psychological
support to the children of Ukraine. A
Mapping
Study on children of Ukraine’s access to education in Council
of Europe member States, which has been prepared by the CGU in close
co-ordination with the Education Department, to understand gaps
and promising practices so as to determine how to further support
member States, was published on 21 November 2024.
10. In 2024, the Council of Europe complemented the Action Plan
for Armenia 2023-2026
Note with a comprehensive response package
to help addressing the mid- and long-term social, health and housing challenges
of the refugee influx in Armenia, caused by displacement, including
children needing support for their education rights.
11. The Committee of Ministers would also underline the European
Committee of Social Rights’ (ECSR) extensive findings based on Articles
15 and 17 of the European Social Charter concerning a human rights-based
approach to education of children with special education needs.
It specifically addressed the challenges of remote learning and,
in this context, emphasised that remote learning exacerbates the
problem of digital exclusion and, in many instances, a move away
from face-to-face teaching severely impacts the access to and the
quality of education of children with disabilities and special education
needs. The ECSR has consistently held that in order to secure the
independence, social integration and participation in the life of
the community of persons with disabilities through their education,
public authorities must take account of the type of disability concerned,
how serious it is and a variety of individual circumstances to be
examined on a case-by-case basis. Inclusive education implies the
provision and support and reasonable accommodations which persons
with disabilities are entitled to expect in order to access schools
effectively. Such reasonable accommodations may also include innovative
learning environments, and digitalisation of education to ensure
that children with special education needs are provided with special
equipment corresponding to those needs. Teaching and learning strategies
should also be tailored to the specific needs of individuals and
groups on the basis of flexible curriculum designs, and digital
media used to promote adaptive teaching.
