Education and schooling of children with special needs have been experiencing some radical changes in recent decades. As a result, many children with special needs have been included in the educational programme with adapted implementation and additional professional assistance. The most important role in the education of children, including those with special needs, is played by teachers who spend the most time with them.
The main aim of the thesis was to explore the attitude of teachers to additional professional assistance for pupils with special needs and to inclusive education. Furthermore, another major objective of the thesis was also to gain insight into teachers’ assessment of cooperation with different providers of additional professional assistance.
Based on theoretical starting points and research questions, a questionnaire containing 14 questions was developed and used in a survey. The sample included 82 teachers of both lower and upper level of primary schools from Maribor and its vicinity.
According to the survey, teachers assess additional professional assistance as effective, and they believe that children with special needs achieve better results by means of additional professional assistance. In addition, teachers mostly declare themselves very satisfied with cooperation with providers of additional professional assistance; moreover, most of them see the provider of additional professional assistance as a special educator, whom they consider as the most competent person for providing additional professional assistance. Further, results of the survey revealed that teachers are partially inclined to the inclusion of children with special needs in primary schools, but at the same time they express doubt as to their ability to work with them. Additionally, they believe that other pupils are neglected because of an included special needs pupil, and consequently perceive such a pupil as additional burden. Hence, teachers estimate that work with such a heterogeneous group is more difficult and that some special needs children would be better off if included in educational programmes adapted to their needs. Finally, the survey showed that teachers mostly gain knowledge for work with children with special needs by cooperating with experts.
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