New Brunswick has been recognized as a world leader in inclusive education in the UNESCO 2020 Global Education Monitoring Report. Specifically, the report gives special attention to our province’s training of a quarter of all teachers to support students with autism, and to our ground-breaking policy establishing that segregated programs and classrooms “must not occur.” It also refers to our province as “a pioneer in promoting inclusive education for three decades.”
All New Brunswickers should be proud that our province has gained acknowledgement on an international stage for our inclusive education practices. Special recognition is due to the educators, policymakers, and especially to the disability rights advocates who have worked hard over the years so that every student can have a place in the classroom with their peers.
Receiving recognition from this report should drive our province to continue to lead in inclusive practices. There’s still work to be done to ensure all learning environments in our province are truly inclusive. But as our 13 National Inclusive Education Award recipients this year show, not to mention the many success stories that NBACL’s facilitators are regular witness to, we’re getting a little bit closer to that goal every day.
Suzanne Desrosiers
President, New Brunswick Association for Community Living
