Inclusion and education

FIGURE 6.4: 
Few professionals and teaching assistants are available to support teachers in inclusive education
Professionals and teaching assistants as percentage of teachers in primary and secondary education, selected education systems, 
2019 or most recent available year
Professionals as share of teachers (%)
Kosovo
3
Slovakia
Hungary
Teaching assis
tan
ts as shar
e o
f teacher
s (%)
12
8
10
6
4
2
0
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Montenegro
Czechia
Lithuania
Latvia
Armenia
Bulgaria
Poland
Source: 
Data collected for the regional report on inclusion and education in Central and Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
3 
References to Kosovo shall be understood to be in the context of Security Council resolution 1244 (1999).
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having such students in their classroom, and to promote 
individualization of teaching (
Box 6.5
).
Teaching assistants’ roles and assignments vary 
significantly, from supporting one student only, 
or a group of students, to supporting teachers 
and participating in support teams. In the Russian 
Federation, an assistant is assigned to a student 
with disability upon approval by the medico-social 
commission to provide support in and outside the 
classroom. In Ukraine, although teaching assistants are 
assigned to individual students with disabilities, they 
also participate in psychological-pedagogical support 
teams along with teachers, other specialists and the 
child’s parents.
In some cases, their role is still somewhat vague or 
debated. For instance, in Armenia the post of teaching 
assistant was recently introduced. The government 
originally described its aim as supporting teachers in 
developing and following up on individualized education 
plans. In the job description, however, only 3 of the 
14 responsibilities listed implied assisting teachers. In 
Azerbaijan, some teachers consider teaching assistants 
to be fully responsible for the education of a student 
with disabilities. However, the core principle should 
be that every learner has the right to be taught by a 
qualified teacher.
Countries report barriers to establishing teaching 
assistant positions. In Azerbaijan, labour legislation 
describes such a post, but mainstream schools’ 
administrations have limited financial autonomy and are 
not empowered to employ additional staff. In Mongolia, 
although the education law specifies the role of assistant 
teachers, legal provisions for hiring them are not 
yet in place.
In some countries, mainstream schools employ teaching 
assistants as mediators. In Bulgaria, an education 
mediator acts as an intermediary between families, 
communities, students and schools, facilitating 
education provision and quality. In Croatia, as part of 
efforts to fulfil the right of learners with disabilities to 
have access to appropriate programmes and forms of 
support, as well as pedagogic and didactic adaptation 
to their needs, the Ministry of Science and Education 
established a committee at the beginning of the 
2019/20 school year to evaluate the real need for 
teaching assistants. It recognized that such initiatives 
needed to be expanded to provide, for instance, an 
effective monitoring mechanism in primary and 
secondary education for learners at risk of early school 
leaving, such as Roma children.
In Serbia, the Roma Teaching Assistant Programme 
assigned a Roma assistant to each eligible primary 
school (Box 6.5). They could allocate their time as 
needed during classes and after school, e.g. collecting 
information about children not enrolling or leaving 
school early, gathering documents, visiting families and 
cooperating with the community. An evaluation found 
the programme helped increase grade 1 Roma student 
attendance (Battaglia and Lebediniski, 2015, 2017).