Support teacher course

The support teacher is a specialized teacher, who is assigned a disabled pupil of a specific class, with the aim of promoting their inclusion. His figure was introduced into Italian compulsory schooling pursuant to the Law of 4 August 1977, n. 517, article 7, on the subject of "Rules on pupil evaluation and the abolition of remedial exams as well as other rules for amending the school system. The Italian Constitution lays the foundations of the Italian inclusive school, stating that education must be guaranteed, compulsory for at least eight years and free for all. In 2009 Italy ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, according to which people with disabilities must receive the necessary support within the education system. This convention, based on the ICF model (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health of 2002), requires the support teacher to intervene on the various components of health, working not only with the pupil but also and above all on contextual factors. The support teacher of the kindergarten and primary school must have obtained the specialization for didactic support activities. The specialization course in pedagogy and special didactics is an annual course consisting of 60 credits (CFU) of which 12 acquired through 300 hours of internship. This training is activated in the universities where there are master's courses of primary training. The requirements to access the course are the possession of a degree in primary education and 60 CFU in the field of inclusion teaching. Due to a system based also on temporary substitutions, school managers, in case of exhaustion of the rankings, can assign the role also teachers without specialization or qualification, without the necessary experience and training, drawing from the school rankings or from the so-called MAD, i.e. the making available.