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The focus of special education around the globe may be to provide specialized instruction to meet unique needs of children to help them achieve their full potential. However, each country around the globe may also have its own unique issues, barriers, legal frames, policies, and practices, as well as a history of its origin and evolution of policies and practices that govern special education in that country. This chapter describes how special education in Spain originated and evolved to its current state. It includes the following chapter sections: origins of special education in Spain; legislative acts; prevalence and incidence of various recognized disability areas; an overview of Spain’s education system including special needs education; current assessment and intervention practices; teacher education practices; family involvement considerations; and future challenges to special education.

This chapter aims to provide a critical analysis of special needs education within the United Kingdom today. Central to such an analysis is an understanding of the rapidly changing social and political milieu within which special needs education is embedded, including the rapidly changing demographics of schooling, and the devolution of political power into four separate but linked countries – England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Following a discussion of such wider social, political and educational issues, the authors explore the convergences and divergences in policy and practice across the four devolved administrations. The authors describe a plethora of contemporary policy developments within each of the four administrations that speak to the need for special needs education to change in response to 21st century concerns about the problems of access to, and equity in, education for all children. Despite this, the authors remain extremely circumspect about the potential of many of these developments to lead to successful inclusive practices and developments on the ground – and explain why. The analysis in the concluding section focuses on the issue of teacher education for inclusion and some very innovate UK research and development projects that have been reported to successfully engage teachers with new paradigm thinking and practice in the field of inclusive special needs education.

While national policies generally support the development of inclusive learning environments, schools can struggle to implement these policies in practice. This longitudinal study offers a unique opportunity to examine at ground level the strengths and limitations of school attempts to implement inclusive practices in relation to children and young people who have special educational needs. This chapter will address the following: government and school policies addressing provision for children and young people with special educational needs; school leaders and implementing policies in practice; types of support provision developed to support those who have literacy difficulties.

The Ghana chapter on special education begins with the history of service provisions for persons with disabilities. It includes information on educational and rehabilitation services, special schools and integrated education. Detailed data is related concerning prevalence and incidence rates and special needs among the Ghana population. This is followed by a comprehensive section on regular and special education teacher roles, expectations, and training. An important aspect of Ghana’s special education is its movement towards inclusive education. The support for this movement comes from the Ministry of Education’s policy, namely, The Education Strategic Plan (ESP), which adopts inclusive education and promotes it as the future special education direction for the country. The chapter provides detailed information on the issues related to the implementation of the ESP plan, four models that have been developed for inclusive education, the progress and effort that Ghana has made towards inclusive education as well as significant challenges that are present.

This chapter provides a comprehensive presentation and discussion of special education in Sweden. The presentation and discussion are tied deeply to the country’s general education system which incorporates social and political aspects as well as beliefs in equity for all.

The municipalities in Sweden have a large degree of independence as such special education can be organized in different ways. Yet, within each municipality’s educational structure is the common theme that students are different therefore teaching cannot be the same for everyone. The following chapter sections provide the reader with a better understanding of Sweden’s general special education system today: legislative acts that ensure equal access to education; the special education context; the history of special education and service in Sweden; the expansion of special education starting in the 1960s and early 1970s; current prevalence data; a clarification of differentiation, inclusion and categorization; teacher preparation advances; problems in schools and student’s difficulties; a description of inclusive education; and current challenges to inclusive education.

Significant progress towards the provision of a more equitable and inclusive education system in Ireland has been made in recent years. National policy initiatives have been supported by the implementation of new assessment and resourcing models and procedures that aim to ensure appropriate support of children described as having special educational needs. A focus upon teacher training and professional development and consideration of education in the post-compulsory years have resulted in changes aimed at improving access and quality of services. This chapter through an interrogation of the research that has influenced changes in national policy and practices, and a scrutiny of associated literature, discusses both the successes achieved towards addressing national inclusive education priorities, and those areas which remain a challenge and in need of further investigation. Building upon a method for reviewing the literature developed by the authors and applied in Ireland as part of a major longitudinal study (Rose, Shevlin, Winter, & O'Raw, 2010) a discussion of the current situation is presented in relation to progress towards the Education for All Goals and key issues for further scrutiny are proposed.

The purpose of the chapter is to give an overview of special education in Iceland, historically and with reference to modern use of terms, research, policy, legal trends and funding. Recent data is provided on demographic developments amongst children in Iceland and detailed account is given of practices in schools, including collaboration with parents and teacher education. Finally some issues and challenges are discussed that still remain to be solved with respect to meeting the special needs of students in school. One of the findings is that only 1.3% of students attend special schools and special classes and that the term special education has outlived its usefulness except perhaps in the context of the three segregated special schools that still remain in the country. Official papers have replaced it with the term special support. Despite a diversity of views and practices the main implication is that a new model of education is required, in line with that proposed by Slee where the needs of individuals are served in all schools and the binary thinking related to regular versus special education is no longer necessary.

The international literature on the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs has been wide‐ranging, focusing mainly on curriculum and assessment, and social inclusion. The issue of funding has been mainly confined to discussions about the size of budget needed to support the resource needs of inclusion (e.g. the costs of additional teachers, support assistants or transport). Less attention has been given to the actual structure of the budget for special education. There has been greater interest in the strategic management of budgets and in the interaction of funding mechanisms at the national, local and institutional levels. This article discusses the effect of resourcing mechanisms for special education and draws on a study across Europe, and other studies based in The Netherlands, the USA and the UK. The strategic behaviours generated by different approaches are considered and the degree to which any particular strategy can influence the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs is assessed.

This chapter presents the Readiness Approach of Educational Administration for Children with Special Needs in Inclusive Learning Management in the VUCA world by summarising Inclusive Learning Management in Thailand and analysing the challenging situation in the VUCA world to discuss about the Readiness Approach of Educational Administration to face the unexpected. The chapter describes the possibilities in three parts: Part 1: Summarising the literature reviewed of Inclusive Learning Management in Thailand. Part 2: Analysing the challenging situation in the VUCA world from the following four concepts: (1) Framework for twenty-first-century Learning Concept; (2) Hard Skill and Soft Skill Competencies Concept; (3) Thailand National Education Standards (2018) and (4) A Commission Report on Education Reform through Competency-Based Curriculum & Instruction. Part 3: to propose Data synthesis of The Readiness Approach of Educational Administration for Children with Special Needs in Inclusive Learning Management in the VUCA world.

The future provision of education for pupils with special educational needs is at the heart of an international debate, and the inclusion of all pupils in mainstream schools (established as a goal in UK legislation) has been the subject of many papers and discussions. In this paper, the authors observe that, despite general acceptance of humanistic arguments, there remains a dearth of research into the efficacy of inclusive practices. In calling for more evaluation, they suggest that the role of special schools for pupils with the most complex learning needs has been overlooked, and that their potential expertise should be harnessed in the move towards inclusion. To make real progress, LEAs and others charged with responsibility for inclusion will need to ensure that the skills developed by teachers in special schools are retained for the benefit of a much larger population ‐ a key challenge in developing a more inclusive education system.