Quality education contributes to the intellectual and personal development of every individual. Marginalised groups, and in particular people with mild intellectual disabilities, require special attention for this purpose. They start their education in adapted educational programmes with a lower educational standard and continue it in secondary educational programmes of lower vocational education. In the theoretical part of the master's thesis, we define mild intellectual disabilities and the characteristics of people with this disability and describe their educational opportunities, focusing on lower vocational education. In detail, we presented the educational field and the specifics of teaching students with mild intellectual disabilities, taking into account an individualised and inclusive approach. We focused on the skills and competences that teachers need to teach students with mild intellectual disabilities and explored possible sources of support and assistance for them. In the empirical part of the study, we interviewed 8 teachers from different subject areas of lower vocational education in semi-structured interviews to find out what challenges they face when teaching students with mild intellectual disabilities. Teachers reported that most students with mild intellectual disabilities have learning difficulties in the areas of working and short-term memory, attention, generalisation and application of newly learned skills, abstract task solving, reading comprehension and metacognition. Nonetheless, they see a clear positive impact on their functioning thanks to their schooling in special education programmes with lower educational standards, while at the secondary level the challenges are often due to the presence of students without special needs in lower vocational programmes. Due to their need to belong, students with mild intellectual disabilities mimic them in their inappropriate behaviour, which results in their lack of success and social isolation. They have poor communication skills, are sensitive, which often leads to conflict, and have problems with motivation. Teachers agree that when teaching students with mild intellectual disabilities, it is important to teach the material in a focused and gradual way, slow down the pace, use different working methods, work less with texts, encourage concrete and model-based learning and motivate them. Due to their weak social skills, these students need help and guidance with communication and conflict resolution. Teachers perceive themselves as inadequate in knowledge and skills in the pedagogical field, so they turn to other school services for help and support, including, where necessary, school management and didactic approaches, where they are mostly left on their own to gather their own experience, share information with colleagues and additional professional supporters.
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