The integration of disabled students in primary and lower secondary schools

During 2011-2012 school year about 145 thousand disabled students were enrolled in compulsory education: about 81 thousand in primary school and 63 thousand in lower secondary school.

About 5.3% of the disabled students in primary school had vision-related disabilities, about 6% had hearing difficulties and about 13.0% had problems related to mobility. Regional differences were clearly evident with respect to learning and attention-deficit problems, which affected 20.1% and 27% of disabled students. National values range from 14.7% with learning difficulties and 21.9% with attention-deficit issues in the North to 26.7% and 33.0% in the South and Island, respectively.

The difficulties that characterized disabled students in lower secondary school were similar to those found in primary school. Visual and hearing difficulties were experienced by approximately 4% of disabled students, while 9.8% were faced with mobility problems. Noteworthy geographical differences were found with respect to learning and attention-deficit difficulties, with higher values detected in the South and Island area.