Couple promotes education of disabled with EU projects

“When you are working on EU projects, you are naturally cooperating with many institutions from Europe. If you are successful at your job, your foreign partners invite you to collaborate on their other projects or recommend you to their other business partners. We mostly conduct projects related to business. But we were offered the opportunity to work on two projects related to disability services by our foreign partners three years ago. This was not an issue we knew much about. But they told us they would educate us and that they needed help with the promotion of the project in Turkey, contacting NGOs and state institutions. In the end, we accepted,” says Alper Eliçin.

Zehra Eliçin also says that when they began these projects they had superficial knowledge about the problems faced by Turkey’s disabled population. Stating that they were excited to make a meaningful contribution to the public with these projects, she says the fact that they are able to contribute to the education of students with disabilities makes them happy.

As the couple explains, two of their EU-partner projects were completed in late 2009 and another that was launched in October 2009 is ongoing.

The name of the first project is QATRAIN (Quality Assurance and Accessible Training 2), which educates teachers and trainers to help the integration of disabled people into mainstream Vocational Education and Training (VET) programs by removing unintended barriers to their entry and successful participation. A Web site was set up in Turkey as well as in four other countries specifically to address the needs of users in vocational education. The second project they undertook is the ETTAD project, which enables teachers and trainers to improve the accessibility of adult education for people with disabilities. Through this project they created a Web-based resource that helps teachers and trainers to ensure that disabled learners are fully integrated into adult education by advising teachers, trainers and quality assurance staff on inclusive teaching, training and assessment strategies. The Eliçins’ latest project is Qatrain 4 Students, or Quality and Accessible Training for Students with Disabilities, which this time targets students for the same purpose.

“The two original projects are complete. Their Web sites are ready. They can be accessed at www.qatrain2.eu and www.ettad.eu. The sites include detailed information about what teachers should do in accordance with different disability groups and learning difficulties. Although these sites are focused on vocational education and ‘lifelong education’, they are also beneficial for elementary school teachers. I think the section that explains how the disabled should be treated and addressed should be read by all Turkish citizens,” Alper says, complaining that most people with no disabilities in Turkey approach disabled people solely with an understanding of pity or charity. “They are not aware that the disabled are equal to us. We should see their problems accessing education, employment and healthcare as basic human rights rather than approaching them with a feeling of pity,” he says.

Education crucial for employment of handicapped

Despite major legal steps taken by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government to promote employment for the handicapped, the share of disabled people in the overall workforce is still below expectations in Turkey.

Alper says the state should work harder to make disabled education more effective. “The state should attach more importance to this issue. Disabilities can only be overcome with high-quality education. If you have received high-quality education, nobody cares about your disability. Have you ever heard that the problems that [founder of the Turkish Republic] Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk] had posed a problem for him?” he asks. Atatürk is known to have left the war with a visual disorder.

He stresses that the state should promote the integration of disabled children in mainstream education rather than focusing on special schools for the disabled, which is also quite costly. “In this way, children with no disabilities can get used to being together with the disabled, which would prevent prejudice against the disabled,” he notes.