It's the logical extension of classroom inclusion (and mainstreaming) policies for students with learning disabilities.
Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.
On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.
Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."
Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the secondary level.
As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of AP calculus (so to speak).
Expect to see more of it as it gained traction among in US colleges of education about 20 years ago - particularly in primary education departments.
On the bright side, at least it's not an MD.
Edit: I believe that in general mainstreaming and inclusion are a good public policy concept with a really thorny ethical issue attached. The thorny issue is, at what point you tell the student, "We were only kidding. You're not really smart enough to continue on the academic path with your classmates."
In the US its rise coincided with that of facilitated communication in the classroom for autistic individuals. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facilitated_communication
Both ideas gained a lot of traction in primary education departments in the early 90's [US]. Primary educators loved Mainstreaming because they were able to pretend the thorny issue didn't exist and let it be dealt with at the secondary level.
As with any bureaucracy, secondary educators have an incentive to continue to pass the buck and little to gain by kicking the mayor's autistic nephew out of AP calculus (so to speak).