Parents’ perspectives on the support provided by the Hong Kong’s integrated education system to SEN primary students and caregivers.

Abstract

Since Hong Kong's integrated education policy and implementation results have been receiving attention from the outside world, it has been pointed out that there are still gaps in the system that many SEN students and their parents feel very helpless. With the reminders of different parties and the government has continued to allocate resources to optimize the relevant policies, has the current integrated education policy still failed to meet the need of SEN students and the expectation of their parents? This study aims to investigate whether the current “The 3-tier Intervention Model” in primary schools has met the SEN students’ and their parents' needs after increasing resources. Also, to determine children and parents’ needs for SEN support and further analyze and apply the suggestions for the improvement. To test the hypothesis that the current policy of integrated education in primary schools is insufficiently effective in supporting SEN students. Respondents were found by a social worker from that part of the population that is close to hand and existing respondents recruit future respondents among their acquaintances, and they were asked to complete a questionnaire through the Internet. Responses were analyzed using correlation. The results showed a small effect in the opposite direction than hypothesized: The needs of SEN children and their parents are not being met by the school's support services because of the lack of transparency and targeting of the support provided by the school. These results suggest that Education Bureau provides schools with clear work content on the support policy for integrated education and maintains good communication between schools and parents, which can help improve the support effectiveness of integrated education and reduce the occurrence of problems. On this basis, the concept of the unique needs of each SEN child and providing individual support plans for each SEN child should be considered when implementing integrated educational support.