Porto Alegre, 1/21/2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - Federal prosecutor, Eugênia Augusta Gonzaga Fávero, speaking at the World Education Forum, reported that today Brazil has around 6 million school age children with physical deficiencies. But out of that total, only 500,000 go to school: 100,000 in regular schools, and the rest in special schools.

Fávero called for an effort to get all the children into normal schools, in accordance with the Brazilian constitution. She said that was where they belonged and that the special schools were established a century ago when it was believed that normal schools could not handle children with special problems. Nowadays she declared, it is the special schools who do not adequately prepare these children for life. (AB)