Key measures taken by the SNEO during Covid-19 outbreak:

According to Dr Hadavand, Deputy for Education and Rehabilitative Services, Special Needs Education Organization has taken several educational and health measures during the outbreak of Covid-19 in school year 2019-2020 including:

1- Launching more than 10 thousand teaching groups in social networks, provision of instruction and health tips on controlling and preventing coronavirus to 90,000 parents of special needs students and telephone counseling and guidance on health issues to administrative staff, principals, teachers, service personnel and school vehicle drivers.

2- Creating a virtual base/school in 7 provinces, parent-centered education through guidance and counseling centers as well as educational and rehabilitation centers for students with special learning difficulties, 320,000 hours of distance education, home-centered and face-to-face instruction to 117,000 regular students, and 583 newcomers.

3- Designing two virtual platforms for quantitative and qualitative evaluation as well as school health indicators platform, centers for special learning difficulties, guidance and counseling centers for families of students with special needs in order to monitor and collect reports on provincial activities.

4- Establishing a direct link for Corona virus in the organization website to inform and educate parents/ guardians and students with special needs regarding the ways to face with and protect themselves against corona virus.

5- Preparing and editing video clips containing 100 key words and phrases in sign language on know-hows for doctors, nurses, medical staff, etc. while communicating with hearing impaired individuals during Covid-19 outbreak, the videos are arranged in 4 short thematic clips namely communication, prevention, Covid-19 symptoms and general terms.

6- Preparing a report on surveys conducted during the period of schools lockdown.

7- Holding video conferences for the principals, teachers and heads of the special education departments in provinces regarding the solutions and key points in fighting the corona virus.

8- Creating virtual bases in all 32 provinces for non-face-to-face training of all special needs student groups as well as for parents and teachers.

9- Launching a platform in the organization's website for collection of educational, rehabilitation, diagnostic, health and counseling contents and materials which are revised and uploaded in a database to be used by the students and all other Special Needs stakeholders.

10- Launching 5 studios for film making and audio recordings for special needs students

11- Holding teaching sessions at home via video conference for students with severe physical disabilities

12- Launching a comprehensive network of digital education and information for special needs students, principals, teachers, parents and other concerned recipients.

13- Provision of communication devices for all special needs students who did not have access to virtual environment education through networks, including the Education Network for Students (known as Shad in Persian) conducted under the organization’s Participatory Empowerment Plan.

14- Holding in-service educational courses through virtual environment for teachers and rehabilitation staff across the country

 

Deputy Head noted that in order to compensate students' educational needs during school lockdowns due to coronavirus outbreak, the organization has carried out several important actions, the most important of which are as follows:

Some of SNEO’s important educational activities during school lockdowns due to coronavirus outbreak:

1- Preparing and sending guidelines on practical methods of integrating activities on how to use communication media and work with the students’ educational network (SHAD) to the provinces and provision of guidelines with regard to the students who do not have access to cyberspace or the Internet.

2- Setting up a taskforce for monitoring and improving the quality of SHAD network and identifying the problems related to each disability category in the network.

3- Forming a virtual group of to support SHAD network, with participation of staff from the organization headquarters and provincial liaisons to follow up at schools level

4- Setting up a platform in the organization's website to share educational content on rehabilitation, upbringing, diagnosis, health and counseling, which is to form a database for uploading the materials to SNEO’s special channel

5- Evaluation of special education schools, classes, students and teachers in terms of access to cyberspace and reporting the analysis of the causes and frequency of problems

6- Forming a task force in the organization for specialized review of the educational contents received from the provinces

7- Running statistical analysis of SHAD network on a daily basis and reporting to the head of the organization

8- Putting the provinces (#32) into four groups and handing over follow up responsibilities of each group to one of the members of the task force in the headquarters

9- Creating a virtual database in all 32 provinces for virtual training of all special needs groups of students, parents and teachers

10- Equipping 5 filming and audio recording studios for special needs students in the organization and in some provinces

11- Making due preparations to create the access to SHAD for special education newcomer students and a specialized audio and video sharing platform in SHAD specifically for special need students

12- Teaching at home via video conferencing for students with severe physical disabilities

13- Establishing a comprehensive network of digital education and information for all special education students, principals, teachers, parents and all other social partners

14- Provision of communication equipment and devices ease the access of all special needs children and students to virtual education networks

 

15- Holding in-service courses through virtual education for teachers and rehabilitation staff across the country