Ecuadorian teachers trained to improve their support for students with disabilities

Nearly 1500 teachers in Ecuador participated in a course aimed at improving support for students with intellectual disabilities, organised by the Spanish Agency for Development Cooperation (AECID), the Ecuadorian Federation for the Support to Persons with Intellectual Disability, Cerebral Palsy, Autism and Down Syndrome (FEPAPDEM), and the Ministry of Education within the framework of Bridging the Gap project.

The activity “Methodologies of care in the classroom for students with intellectual disabilities and the use of accessible educational materials” consisted of 6 online training workshops of 10 hours duration divided into four sessions each and held between 19 May and 15 June.

The participants came from both public and private education from all the regions of Ecuador. Over the four sessions of each workshop, they received training in methodologies for the care in the classroom of boys and girls with intellectual disabilities from the levels of General Basic Education, as well as in the handling of the educational materials ‘Así Aprendo‘, elaborated within the framework of Bridging the Gap and the first worldwide educational materials designed for the educational inclusion of intellectual disabilities in Spanish.

The course was developed with a human rights-based approach to disability and under the principles of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that aims to eliminate barriers and give equal opportunities to learn to all students by designing flexible learning experiences that meet the needs of each student.

Due to the good results obtained, this and future educational workshops held within the framework of Bridging the Gap in Ecuador will be transformed into self-contained courses to increase their scope and future replicability.