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Leave no girl with disabilities behind: Ensuring efforts to advance gender equality in education are disability-inclusive.

DIAMOND, Gloria
CASTRES, Pauline
April 2021

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This advocacy brief from the UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI) and Leonard Cheshire draws attention to the main barriers to education for girls with disabilities, in the context of major opportunities for advocacy and tangible change in 2021.  The recommendations outlined are targeted at world leaders, governments, ministries, UN agencies and NGOs. They offer a framework for rights-based action and principles towards gender-responsive and inclusive education, to ensure that no girls with disabilities are left behind. 

What evidence is there for the benefits of inclusive education for children without disabilities? - Evidence brief

STEFFEN, Liändrie
March 2021

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Inclusive education offers a variety of potential academic and social benefits for all students; with as well as without disabilities. However, a common concern among the non-disabled population is the potential negative impacts the inclusion of students with disabilities might have on their non-disabled classmates.  These negative beliefs and attitudes by parents and teachers can translate into a lack of implementation of inclusive education. There is substantial evidence for the benefits of inclusion for students with disabilities, however, there is very little evidence on the impact it has on non-disabled students, particularly in LMICs compared to HICs. This evidence brief explores evidence-based recommendations on the benefits of inclusive education for children without disabilities and how this issue shapes inclusive education implementation in LMICs.

When differences are made into likenesses: the normative documentation and assessment culture of the preschool

KARLSUDD, Peter
2021

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This article is based on studies carried out within the Young children’s learning research education programme. This undertaking involved five graduate students, all recruited from the Swedish preschool system. The licentiate thesis makes up the final product of their education programme, and the focus of each candidate’s licentiate thesis was preschool-level documentation. Using the results of all five theses, a re-analysis was conducted with the concept of normality as the common starting point. The purpose was to investigate whether documentation and assessment can change the view of normality in preschools, and furthermore, what consequences there may be for preschool activity. ‘The narrow preschool and the wide preschool’ is the model used to support the analysis, which is a model used in previous studies to review and discuss educational choices and conditions in the school system. Results of the present investigation show that the documents and assessments performed in preschool have a strong focus on the individual child and a traditional, school-oriented learning is highly valued. The documentation and assessment practices that take place now in our preschools, therefore, most likely influence the preschool view of normality and restrict the acceptance of differences.

Insisting on inclusion: Institutionalisation and barriers to education for children with disabilities in Kyrgyzstan

MILLS, Laura
December 2020

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Since 2012, the Kyrgyz government has pledged to close 17 residential institutions for children, including three for children with disabilities. But 3,000 children with disabilities remain in institutions.

This report is based on in-person visits to six institutions for children with disabilities and 111 interviews with children with disabilities, their parents, institution staff, and experts in four regions of Kyrgyzstan. It describes abuses in state care as well as barriers to education that often lead to a child’s segregation in a residential institution or special school, or their isolation at home.

 

 

Let’s break silos now! Achieving disability-inclusive education in a post-COVID world

HUMANITY & INCLUSION (HI)
November 2020

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Children with disabilities face multiple obstacles to access and thrive in education. In low- and middle-income countries, 50% of children with disabilities are out of school.  More than 40% of countries in the regions of Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean still lean towards segregated education systems. Obstacles for the education of children with disabilities exist both within and outside the education system. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated inequalities in education. In times of crisis, coordinated multi-sectoral approaches are even more important to address the complexity and interdependency of children’s care, safety, wellbeing and education. 

The extensive experience of Humanity & Inclusion and its partners across the 27 countries where they implement Inclusive education projects was crucial to develop this report and to nourish it with first-hand expertise and evidence. The Report contains arguments, testimonies, case-studies, and a list of actionable recommendations for governments in low and middle income countries, aid donors, and multilateral agencies

Unheard children. Championing deaf children’s rights to family, community, education and independence in developing countries

DEAF CHILDREN WORLDWIDE
November 2020

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This report highlights the specific barriers facing deaf children and young people and demonstrates a number of smallscale approaches and initiatives that have succeeded in breaking down some of these barriers.

Topics are:

  • Language and communication. Early diagnosis and support (example from Bangladesh). Effective and affordable hearing technology. Communication choices. What is sign language? Tanzanian Sign Language – the need for more interpreters
  • Families. Early diagnosis and support. Upskilling parents and primary caregivers. Power to the parents (example from Uganda). Catalyst for change (example from India). 
  • Communities. Deaf role models (example from Bangladesh). Challenging the public and professionals. Educating the police force (example from India). Sharing knowledge across organisations
  • Education. Intensive communication. Extra help in the classroom (example from Kenya). Making secondary education accessible. Developing sign language skills. Inclusive further and higher education
  • Independence. Listening to deaf young people. Involving deaf young people in research. Support to make informed choices. Challenging perceptions in the workplace (example from Kenya)

 

 

Promoting Inclusive Education in Mongolia

SHELZIG, Karin
NEWMAN, Kirsty
November 2020

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This paper explores inclusive education for children with disabilities in Mongolia in line with the global commitment captured in SDG 4, based on data from a 2019 survey of more than 5,000 households in Ulaanbaatar, and 4 provinces.

 

ADB EAST ASIA WORKING PAPER SERIES No.28

Being a girl & disabled in West Africa : the educational situation in question Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso

Humanity & Inclusion
October 2020

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Questions de recherche

1 / Dans quelle mesure le handicap — en interrelation avec le genre — influence-t-il les parcours de scolarisation des filles handicapées?

2 / Quelles spécificités liées aux types et au degré de handicap (physique, visuel, auditif, intellectuel) peuvent être observées?

3 / Quelles sont les spécificités liées à l’âge des filles handicapées?

4 / A quels enjeux, notamment en matière de protection de l’enfance, les jeunes filles handicapées sont-elle exposées ?

5 / Quelles spécificités contextuelles émergent dans les trois pays, objet de l’étude et dans les différents terrains d’étude?

6 / Quel rôle joue la religion et les croyances populaires dans l’accentuation des discriminations à l’égard des filles handicapées?

7 / Quels éléments facilitateurs (familiaux/communautaires/institutionnels/politiques/etc.) pour l’éducation des filles handicapées pourraient être identifiés dans les différentes zones d’étude?

Psychosocial Functioning in Children with Dyslexia: Perspectives from Parents, Counsellors and Teachers

BAJAJ, Deepali
BHATIA, Sangeeta
2020

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Purpose: The study aimed to understand the issues and challenges encountered by various stakeholders (teachers, parents and counsellors) working with children with dyslexia in the inclusive school context.

 

Method: Using purposive and snowball sampling, 20 teachers, 20 counsellors and 20 parents (mothers) of children with specific learning disability (dyslexia) were selected from 8 inclusive schools in Delhi. A qualitative approach was adopted, with a semi-structured interview schedule to elicit responses. Qualitative thematic analysis was used as a framework for data analysis.

 

Results: Parents experienced negative feelings due to lack of awareness and acceptance of dyslexia. Counsellers felt parental ignorance led to delay in assessment and remediation. Parents and counsellors perceived lack of support from schools and lack of empathy among teachers. Teachers confessed they lacked training to deal with dyslexic learners, were unaware of policies and concessions for them, and were currently overburdened with their workload.

 

Conclusion: There is a need to hold psycho-educational workshops for parents in order to increase their awareness, and conduct training workshops (pre-service and in-service) for teachers to increase awareness and build empathy. Schools should provide in-house assistive services such as assessment and remediation, and redefine the goals of education to focus on the holistic skills of children.

Pivoting to inclusion : Leveraging lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for learners with disabilities

McCLAIN-NHALPO,Charlotte Vuyiswa
KULBIR SINGH,Ruchi
MARTIN,Anna Hill
et al
August 2020

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As governments respond to the Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the global community must ensure that persons with disabilities are included. This will require disability inclusion to be considered in all interconnected sectors; education, health, social protection, and inclusion from the planning stage all the way through to delivery and recovery efforts that are inclusive of all and are sufficiently differentiated to meet the specific needs of children with disabilities. The issues paper focuses on the following objectives: (1) addressing education, social needs, barriers, and issues for learners with disabilities at a global, regional, and country-level during the COVID-19 crisis; and (2) recommending practices for education and social inclusion, and reasonable accommodations utilizing the twin track approach and principles of universal design for learning.

Education for Every Ability. A review and roadmap of disability-inclusive education in East Asia and Pacific

UNICEF EAST ASIA AND PACIFIC
July 2020

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Rapid advances in education provision over the past few decades in East Asia and Pacific has led to considerable progress in integrating out-of-school children and adolescents in basic education. However, children with disabilities continue to face many barriers to accessing and completing quality primary education. While countries increasingly recognize the importance of making education systems more disability inclusive, many challenges remain to realising inclusive education for every child

 

The Education Section of UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (EAPRO) commissioned a review of the progress of countries and UNICEF programmes in the region in advancing inclusive education for children, as part of its continued commitment to enabling equitable access to and participation of all learners in high quality and inclusive education. The mapping has a particular focus on programmes targeted for children with disabilities of pre-primary and primary school age, implemented from 2015 to 2019. 

 

This Report analyzes successes, innovative approaches, challenges, gaps and priorities for action in the region and proposes a roadmap for advancing Inclusive Education in the region

 

Guidance Note 5: Return to School

McGEOWN, Julia
BOISSEAU, Sandra
BOHAN-JACQUOT, Sandrine
July 2020

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This guidance is part of a series to provide support during the Covid-19 crisis. The guidance notes include #1 Inclusive Digital learning, #2 Teacher resources, #3 Home support, #4 TV and Radio Learning, and #5 Return to School.

 

10 tips are provided for returning to school during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Tips are given to cope with school re-opening, manage learning continuity with existing constraints and build better education systems.

 

Ensuring an inclusive return to school for children with disabilities

CBM Australia
June 2020

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This guidance has been produced by CBM Australia for UNICEF’s East Asia and the Pacific Regional Office and UNICEF Australia. The document is intended for UNICEF staff, education policy makers and planners in the East Asia and Pacific Region. Its purpose is to provide guidance on critical considerations and actions that should be undertaken to ensure an inclusive return to school for children with disabilities, as children return to school after the temporary closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of an inclusive education intervention on learning outcomes for girls with disabilities within a resource-poor setting

CAREW, Mark
DELUCA, Marcella
GROCE, Nora
FWAGA, Sammy
KETT, Maria
May 2020

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Background: Despite a global commitment to the right to education for persons with disabilities, little is known about how to achieve inclusive education in practice, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where the majority of the world’s people with disabilities reside. Moreover, although exclusion from education is magnified by intersecting gender and socioeconomic inequalities, there is especially little knowledge regarding what approaches to inclusive education are effective amongst girls with disabilities living in resource-poor settings.

 

Objectives: The objective of this article was to assess the impact of an inclusive education intervention led by a non-governmental organisation (NGO) on the educational attainment of girls with disabilities in the resource-poor Lakes region of Kenya.

 

Method: A quasi-experimental design was employed, where the literacy and numeracy educational attainment of the intervention and control groups was compared over two time points a year apart (Time 1 and Time 2; total matched N = 353). During this period, activities pertaining to six core components of a holistic inclusive education model were implemented.

 

Results: Relative to the control group, girls with disabilities in the intervention group reported a greater increase in literacy and numeracy attainment, adjusted for grade and level of functional difficulty.

 

Conclusion: Findings suggest that the intervention was successful in engendering additional improvements in the educational attainment of girls with disabilities from the resource-poor Lakes region of Kenya. Results highlight both the applicability of NGO-led interventions in settings, where national implementation of inclusive education is constrained, and the potential of taking such interventions to scale.

 

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 9, 2020

Are children with disabilities in school and learning? Evidence from a household survey in rural Punjab, Pakistan

MALIK, Rabea
RAZA, Fizza
ROSE, Pauline
SINGAL, Nidhi
2020

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Invisibility of children with disabilities in data on educational access and learning is a key policy challenge for tracking progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. In this article, we report findings from a household survey undertaken in rural Punjab, Pakistan. These data enable us to identify the extent to which children with disabilities are in school and learning the basics in literacy and numeracy. We find that, perhaps contrary to expectations, many of these children in this context are in mainstream (government and private) schools, although their chances of being in school are lower than their peers. We further find that overall levels of literacy and numeracy are low, even more so for children with disabilities. Our findings corroborate recent research from other countries. The paper highlights important lessons for the policy which are of relevance to other low-income contexts.

Disability & the Global South (DGS), 2020, Vol. 7 No. 1

2020

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Articles include:

  • Decolonising inclusive education: an example from a research in Colombia
  • At the Margins of Society: Disability Rights and Inclusion in 1980s Singapore
  • Universal Notions of Development and Disability: Towards Whose Imagined Vision?
  • Decolonizing inclusive education: A collection of practical inclusive CDS- and DisCrit-informed teaching practices implemented in the global South

Stronger together in crises: Education Cannot Wait (ECW) 2019 Annual results report

EDUCATION CANNOT WAIT
2020

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Education Cannot Wait reaffirmed itself as the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis in 2019, building a global movement with strategic partners to provide children and youth caught in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change-induced disasters and protracted crises with the safety, hope and opportunity of an education.

Working with our broad range of partners, ECW had active grants in 29 crisis-affected countries in 2019. This report captures the results delivered through these investments to support inclusive and equitable quality education for the millions of girls and boys caught in humanitarian crises.

In 2019, ECW reached 10,473 children with disabilities, bringing the number of children with disabilities reached since the Fund’s inception to about 23,600. A short case study is provided about inclusive education for children with disabilities in Uganda

Zero Project Report 2020: Inclusive education. 75 Innovative Practices and 11 Innovative Policies from 54 countries

BUTCHER, Thomas
et al
January 2020

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There are several sections in this report:

  • Executive summary
  • Impact of the Zero Project: Survey results
  • Innovative policies and practices: Factsheets and life stories
  • The Zero Project Impact Transfer accelerator programme
  • An analysis of ICT supporting innovations in inclusive education
  • SDGs, Data and inclusive education
  • Summary of report in Easy Read. 

Themes were:

  • Early childhood and preschool
  • Formal education (primary and secondary education)
  • Universities (tertiary education)
  • Vocational education and training
  • Non-formal education
  • ICT-driven solutions related to education/digital skills

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