We have been delighted to hear that our earlier project on IMproving ASsistance in Inclusive Educational Settings (IMAS) has been selected as a “success story” by a panel of experts from the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture of the European Commission.

“Success stories” are finalised projects that have distinguished themselves by their impact, contribution to policy-making, innovative results and/or creative approach, and can be a source of inspiration for others.

The IMAS project took place in 2016-17 and was funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission (project number 2016-1-AT01-KA202-016778). It focused on the education of disabled children and young people in Europe, with the aim of establishing a common framework for scrutinising how assistance is organised in schools.

The project stemmed from the fact that the European Union and all member states have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and, therefore, the European educational systems have to become inclusive. All children and young people should be able to rely on professional staff to enable their learning and participation in school. For disabled children and young people, non-teaching staff (learning support assistants, teaching assistants or similar) play a vital role in enabling them to successfully engage in every aspect of compulsory and post compulsory education.

The IMAS project set an important first step to draw attention to assistance services at national and European level, on the understanding that these play an important role in developing a more inclusive education system consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD. The project demonstrated that there are no clear and consistent frameworks for availability, quality and responsibilities of learning support assistants in schools and other educational settings. It also showed that in some regions of Europe the possibility of making assistance services routinely available to disabled children does not exist.

The project put forward a set of recommendations, which were intended to provide orientation for decision makers and assist them in further developing assistance services in their countries, in ways which are consistent with the requirements of the UNCRPD.

CSIE is currently involved in the follow-up project, IMAS II, a two-year project which was launched in October 2018 and is also funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission (project number 2018-1-AT01-KA202-039302). CSIE is one of nine project partners from six European countries, working to develop five web-based “Knowledge Boxes” for learning support assistants working with disabled children and young people.