Goal fulfilment in school for the deaf and hearing impaired - batod

pupils at special school have lower merit ratingsthan deaf and hearing impaired pupils whoattend other types of school.It is difficult for hearing impaired and deaf pupilsto achieve higher grades irrespective of the typeof school. The difference in comparison withother pupils at compulsory school is significant.It should, however, be noted that many deaf andhearing impaired pupils do succeed in achievinghigh grades at their chosen type of school. Thenumber of grades on which the merit ratingis based – the sum of the pupil’s sixteen bestgrades – differs between the types of school(s).The merit ratings from special schools are basedon a smaller number of grades; the pupils, inother words, have been awarded grades in fewersubjects. Only 56% of the pupils at specialschool have grades in more than 11 subjects.With regard to other hearing impaired and deafpupils the equivalent figure is approximately85% (see diagram 4).If one looks at the difference between boys’and girls’ merit ratings (diagram 6), thedifference between the sexes is greatest in specialschools. Diagram 5, moreover, shows that thedistribution of merit ratings is very wide inspecial schools, particularly for the boys.In the most recent statistics for compulsoryschool as a whole, the National Agency forEducation presents a difference between the sexesin which the average grade value for girls (schoolleaving year 2006) is 218 and the correspondingvalue for boys is 196. This being so, girlsgenerally achieve school goals better than boys.The proportion of hearing impaired and deafpupils who qualify to apply for upper secondaryis smallest within special schools (see table 9).The group comprising hearing impaired anddeaf pupils in compulsory schools also hasa lower proportion of pupils qualifying forthe national programmes. The same patternapplies to the proportion of pupils who didnot achieve the goals in one, several or allsubjects. It is more difficult for pupils bornin other countries to achieve the knowledgegoals in school, and the proportion of pupils atspecial schools with a mother tongue other thanSwedish is high compared to that in compulsoryschools. According to the responses receivedfrom parents, the proportion of pupils bornin another country is greater in schools for thehearing impaired and special schools than it isfor hearing impaired pupils in other compulsoryschools. In the summary of grades in this project,we have only had access to details of countryof birth for individually placed pupils. Indiagram 7 we present grades of 778 individuallyplaced pupils, divided by gender and wherethey were born. The diagram shows that hearingimpaired pupils born in other countries also havedifficulties at school, and this applies to boys inparticular.If the parents’ level of education is considered,this too has significance for the pupils’ meritrating. If the parents’ highest level of educationis compulsory school or equivalent, the medianmerit rating for 778 hearing impaired pupilsis 165 and 175 respectively, depending onwhether the mother’s or the father’s schoolingis taken into account. If we compare this withparents who have a minimum of a 3‐year courseof higher education, the pupils’ median meritratings are then 220 and 230 respectively.To find out whether systematic errors hadoccurred in respect of the merit ratings on thebasis of the previously mentioned underreportingby the audiological health care service, wecompared individually placed pupils’ medianvalues over time with special school and schoolsfor the hearing impaired. Between the yearsof leaving school 02‐03 and 04‐05 and 06, wefound that the merit ratings fell in all threegroups, the most being by 15 points for specialschools. This was during a period when the meritratings of all the other pupils at compulsoryschool increased. This means, in other words,that the individually placed pupils’ merit ratingsfollowed the same trend as those of pupilsin other types of schools in this project and,for this reason, we have concluded that theunderreporting from the audiological health careservice has not affected the merit ratings.Goal fulfilment in school for the deaf and hearing impaired39