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Towards Inclusive Education - The impact of disability on school attendance in developing countries

Suguru Mizunoya
Sophie Mitra
IzumiYamasaki
May 2016

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The paper aims to reduce the global knowledge gap pertaining to the impact of disability on school attendance, using cross-nationally comparable and nationally representative data from 18 surveys in 15 countries that are selected among 2,500 surveys and censuses. These selected surveys administered the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) of disability-screening questions, covering five functional domains of seeing, hearing, mobility, self-care, and remembering, and collected information on educational status. The paper finds that (i) the average disability gap in school attendance stands at 30% in primary and secondary schools in 15 countries; (ii) more than 85% of disabled primary-age children who are out of school have never attended school; (iii) the average marginal effect of disability on primary and secondary school attendance is negative and significant (-30%), and (iv) countries that have reached close to universal primary education report high ratios of disabled to non-disabled out-of-school children and (v) disabled children confront the same difficulties in participating in education, regardless of their individual and socio-economic characteristics.

Children and disability in transition in CEE/CIS and the Baltic States

UNICEF INNOCENTI RESEARCH CENTRE
2005

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This report presents the status of children with disabilities in the former Soviet Union and Baltic States (i.e. CEE/CIS). It explains existing rights and education, healthcare and recreation facilities that are provided for children with disabilities. The concerns of children with disabilities and their parents are highlighted on various issues. This report would be useful for people interested in the status of children with disabilities in the former Soviet Union and Baltic States

Ensuring the rights of indigenous children

MILLER, Michael
February 2004

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This Digest details how the rights of indigenous children in both rural and urban areas are often compromised or denied. Specific areas of concern include the rights of indigenous children to survival and development, to good health, to education that respects their cultural identity, to protection from abuse, violence and exploitation, and participation in decision-making processes relevant to their lives. At the same time, however, indigenous children possess special resources as custodians of a multitude of cultures, languages, beliefs and knowledge systems. As this Digest discusses, the most effective initiatives to promote the rights of indigenous children build upon these very elements. Such initiatives recognize the inherent strength of indigenous communities, families and children, respect their dignity and give them full voice in all matters that affect them. The child age group in this report is from 0 - 18, with some areas that focus on early childhood development. For example, the right to birth registration, a name and nationality (p 9), or intercultural initiatives for safe childbirth in Peru (p 15)

The child friendly cities initiative in Italy

CORSI, Marco
2002

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This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of different child friendly cities initiatives in Italy and the many measures by national, regional and local governments to support them. City initiatives have sought to respond to the constraints that industrialisation and urbanisation have placed on children’s safe mobility, use of city space and participation. Many of the initiatives described have promoted children’s participation in city governance, often through children’s councils that developed proposals for city governments. Also described are special provisions by municipal authorities to ensure more attention to children’s issues, many of them involving environmental improvements that benefit children (for example, making children’s routes between home and school safer, expanding parks, creating bicycle tracks). The paper also describes children’s assessment of impacts, also their critical views of administrators who failed to keep their promises and teachers who were too controlling in participatory projects

Children in Bulgaria : growing impoverishment and unequal opportunities

GANTCHEVA, Roumania
KOLEV, Alexandre
January 2001

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This paper investigates the changes that have occurred over the last decade in three dimensions of child welfare recognised as fundamental child rights - economic well-being, health and education. Then it concentrates on particularly vulnerable groups of children - those born of teenage and single mothers and those living in institutions. The data show that the human cost of economic transition has been high and children have been among the most vulnerable groups of the society

The two faces of education in ethnic conflict : towards a peacebuilding education for children

BUSH, Kenneth
SALTARELLI, Diana
Ed
2000

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This document challenges a widely-held assumption that education is inevitably a force for good. While stressing the many stabilising aspects of good quality education, editors Kenneth Bush and Diana Saltarelli show how education can be manipulated to drive a wedge between people, rather than drawing them closer together. This Innocenti Insight outlines the negative and positive faces of education in situations of tension or violence, including the denial of education as a weapon of war (negative) and the cultivation of inclusive citizenship (positive). It emphasises the need for peacebuilding education. The publication is about children of all ages, but it also discusses the creation of ethnic identity from an early age (section 1), and gives examples of the destruction of primary schools as a weapon of war (p.11)

Child friendly cities initiative

UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF)

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This website is a knowledge base for the global Child Friendly Cities (CFC) Initiative. It contains the CFC Database, which collects information on the role played by local governance systems in the areas of child rights, child participation and services for children; a CFC toolkit, which offers a definition of a CFC, examples of good practice and successful methods from around the world, a framework for action and key references

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