A draft bill on social services proposes state funding for support for children in inclusive education
In Bill No. 14191, the bill’s sponsors stress the need for state funding to support children during inclusive education.
In the first draft of Bill 14191, we proposed funding a range of social services from the State Budget. However, in the version submitted for the second reading, we have so far reached a consensus on only one of the proposed services: early intervention. At the same time, I am convinced that the other proposed social services are no less important for the development of the child, the family and an inclusive, barrier-free society.
And now, briefly, on why we consider it necessary to fund precisely these social services from the State Budget.
Let us start with support for inclusive education.
Article 53 of the Constitution of Ukraine guarantees that everyone has the right to education. However, today in Ukraine this right is far from being realised equally for all – for many children with special educational needs (SEN), the journey to school or nursery is a daily struggle for the family to secure the basic opportunity to be present in the classroom.
This refers to support services during inclusive education — in simpler terms, a child’s assistant who helps the child with self-care, eating, moving around whilst at school, communicating with teachers and other children, ensuring safety and monitoring their well-being, and staying at nursery or school throughout the day. Without this support, some children are effectively unable to attend an educational institution.
And this is where the paradox of the Ukrainian system arises.
The IRC, inclusive classes and groups, textbooks for children with SEN, teaching staff, including teaching assistants – are funded primarily through an educational grant from the state budget. However, when the IEP states that a child requires a teaching assistant, the responsibility falls on the local authority, as support services during inclusive education are defined as a basic social service.
And this is precisely where the right to education begins to depend on the community’s financial capacity, the priorities of local authorities, and, in general, whether a particular community ‘understands’ the importance of inclusion. As a result, we have a critical inequality in children’s access to education.
According to the National Social Service, in 2024 only 392 support services for inclusive education were provided; the number of requests stood at 756; in a number of regions, such a service was not provided at all. And these are only official requests. The actual need is significantly higher, as many parents do not even apply.
Consequently, mothers are often forced to leave their jobs, accompany their child to school themselves, or give up on full-fledged inclusive education altogether. In other words, the state declares the right to education and creates inclusive classes, but fails to provide one of the key conditions without which some children are physically unable to exercise this right. And that is precisely why funding for this service must be the responsibility of the state, rather than depending on the capacity of a particular local authority.
International practice confirms this. Typically, funding for child assistants is not separated from funding for the inclusive education system, and often, both in Europe and the US, inclusive education is funded or co-funded from the state budget through subsidies to local budgets or grants.
That is why public hearings will be held next week, where we will discuss these changes in detail and seek ways to rectify the situation. This is an opportunity for experts, the parent community and government representatives to express their views, so that the right to education finally becomes a reality for every child, regardless of their community’s budget.
Adequate funding for support services in inclusive education is not merely a matter of social policy, but first and foremost a matter of realising the constitutional right to education.
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