The Constitutional Chamber of Costa Rica, the country’s highest court, has given the Ministry of Education four months to establish an “inclusive education system” for people with autism and other disabilities, according to a sentence issued June 17 and published today.

The court accepted an appeal presented by a 14-year-old child with autism spectrum disorder against Monterrey High School (Colegio Monterrey) – where he studies – for changing teaching methods which resulted in separating him from his peers. The school is located in the eastern San José district of San Pedro.

The appeal was based on the boy’s family claiming the school had not carried out what was ordered by a court in a 2016 sentence that required the child to be offered an integrated educational program.

According to the Supreme Court,

“It is indispensable that what is ordered in that sentence be fulfilled and that the necessary regulations be established to guide private schools along the path of educational inclusion.

“The Ministry of Education must provide standardization and guidelines for schools in this area, with a clear set of actions on how to proceed, but they also must exercise regular monitoring and evaluation,” says the court sentence.

The representation of the parents of the minor manifests in the resource that studies in the school since 2012, that is applied the significant curricular adaptation in the modality of educational integration and that counts throughout the school day with a shadow teacher.

After the boy completed primary school, and seventh grade education using an educational integration method that included a special teacher assigned to him, in mid-June 2016 the school informed the family that the boy was to moved to a separate special education classroom.

In the appeal, the family claimed there was no basis for changing his classroom and that the boy would receive an inferior quality education – focused on vocational skills – that what he has been receiving, as well as being separated from his lifelong friends.

The court ordered the school to return the child to return the child to his classroom and guarantees his right to an inclusive education in the regular system, and established a four month period for the transition to occur.

In addition, the high court emphasized that, “The social integration of persons with disabilities must be a priority objective of the state which has the obligation to adopt the mechanisms that are necessary to progressively remove the barriers that limit people with disabilities from exercising their right to an independent life.”