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Literacy of Biology Teachers on Supportive Measures During the Biology Learning Process for Primary School Students with Learning Disabilities

In recent years there has been a lot of discussion about the students’ rights to equal educational quality. Several international documents and reports as well as Latvia’s Education Development Guidelines 2014–2020 envisage provision of inclusive and equitable quality education, reaching the maximum potential of each student according to his/her abilities, willingness and effort, not circumstances the student (also the teacher and parents) have no influence over. Inclusive education is also one of the six education principles included in the project “Competency Based Curriculum” by the National Centre for Education of the Republic of Latvia. Although in Latvia, as well as in other countries around the world, inclusive education is talked about a lot, the actual level of inclusion measured by the international research project OECD PISA 2015 is low and students with disabilities are still segregated. Teachers often lack professional knowledge and skills for working with students with learning disabilities; teachers of biology and natural sciences do not have enough specific recommendations and sample materials to provide adequate support measures for students with learning disabilities. The aim of this paper is to study the literacy of biology teachers at mainstream education schools on the support measures required by primary school students with learning disabilities during the biology learning process. The author analyzed legislative documents, statistics and scientific literature; developed a questionnaire and surveyed biology teachers working in mainstream education schools and summarized the results of the study. The empirical part of research determined the level of biology teachers’ literacy of supportive measures required by students with learning disabilities. The results suggest that biology teachers are able to choose the support measures required by students with learning disabilities during the biology learning process and they know how to provide these support measures according to their knowledge and experience. However, they are not able to use their knowledge and experience to offer and provide support measures tailored to each individual student.