Methodological Training of Special Education Teachers in Belarus: State and Development Strategies

The widespread dissemination of humanitarian ideas, integration and inclusive processes create new challenges for the professional education of special education teachers. The focus is on methodological training, the ability to work with different children, organizational and methodological heterogeneity. A new social order is the methodological competence of a specialist who does not have just knowledge and skills, but experience in effectively solving the pedagogical problems of students with special education needs. The aim of the article is to identify the state of the methodological competence of Belarusian future special education teachers (graduates of higher educational institutions), to see the features of the existing methodological training, to determine the main strategies for increasing its effectiveness at the national level. The leading method is self-assessment of students’ state of methodological competence. The study involved 578 students from four Belarusian universities. The article describes the structure and content of future teachers’ methodological competence (4th year students) in the context of the ability to implement the educational process in the new conditions of variable educational practice. The research materials allow us to see the problem areas of the existing practice of methodological training in Belarusian universities and to assess the possible directions of its modernization.