Discussion

After the breakup of the USSR the education systems of the former Soviet republics began to develop independently and adopt new legal and professional norms. Many of these norms are universal in nature – f.e., inclusion and equal access to education for all categories of the population, including access to secondary and higher education for children with various disabilities. The present study makes use of the results of a survey of parents of school-children in the Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia and Russia to assess the satisfaction of parents of children with or without SEN studying at inclusive schools. It is shown that parents have a fairly positive attitude towards inclusive education, albeit the main demand for inclusive education stems from parents of children with disabilities. However, respondents in most countries assessed the situation in inclusive schools as not being ideal, in particular, they were not satisfied with the qualification of teachers. The present study shows that the countries of the post-Soviet space are extremely inhomogeneous in the indicators of parental satisfaction with inclusive education: while in some countries (Georgia) experience of integrating inclusion in education might be estimated as positive, due to the active participation of the state into the development of inclusive education, in other (Belarus) real institutions for implementation of inclusive norms in education are still in a nascent state.