Education for all? The challenges of inclusive education

An estimated 113 million disabled children are denied entry to education. Millions more drop out, their learning needs unmet. What can be done to prevent learners with impairments, or children from marginalised social groups, from being deprived of their human right to education at least at the primary level? What are the barriers, which prevent their inclusion?

A report written for UNESCO reviews developments in the theory, policy and practice of inclusive education since the World Conference on Education for All (EFA) at Jomtien in 1990. It recognises that the problem of achieving EFA is not solely one of initial access and enrolment but also one of regular attendance, retention and timely and successful completion. The report offers policy-makers a catalogue of examples of creative ways in which obstacles to inclusion are being overcome.

The fight for EFA is not solely concerned with those sometimes referred to as disabled or handicapped, but also incorporates other learners vulnerable to exclusion or marginalisation. These include girls and women, street and working children, refugees, orphans - especially those whose parents have died of AIDS - and children from ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities.

Across the world there are examples of instructive practice aimed at including learners with impairments or those suffering from social disadvantage even where economic circumstances or priorities lead to large classes and poor physical learning conditions. Among the post-Jomtien achievements celebrated in the report are:

• the success of a child with severe motor difficulties assisted with entry to a school in Vietnam - one of 260 000 children with similar impairments across the world integrated into mainstream schools in the 1990s
• the success of children with visual impairments in mainstream schools in dispelling prejudices in Guangxi, China
• the overcoming of hostile community and pupil attitudes to enrolment of children with disabilities in a school in Romania
• participatory monitoring as a protective tool against violation of the rights of disabled students in South Africa
• the role of decentralisation of educational management in Madagascar in making access easier for all children and changing attitudes towards disability
• the work of itinerant specialist teachers in Kenya helping schools to welcome visually impaired children.

There is still much to be done. Some programmes that appear to confront exclusion may inadvertently be sidelining indigenous cultures and languages. Even in industrialised societies with well-funded systems of education discrimination and exclusion may be the responses when societies are confronted with new challenges of mass immigration and/or increased diversity.

Policy-makers are urged to:

• place inclusive education policies within wider economic development and employment policies
• recognise that labelling children as ‘disabled’ or as having ‘learning difficulties’ can mask the failure of schools and teachers to offer appropriate instruction
• realise the terms ‘integration’ and ‘mainstream’ can be misleading if used when children with disabilities are invited into educational settings really designed for others, which do not offer equal opportunities for learning
• learn from agencies which have worked together to motivate excluded people to include themselves
• realise that the movement towards inclusive education is not just a question of extending access: education has to be relevant and participatory for all learners.

 

Source(s):
‘Inclusion in education: the participation of disabled learners’ by James Lynch, UNESCO, 2001 Full document.

id21 Research Highlight: 23 June, 2003

Further Information:
UNESCO
Inclusive Education
7, place de Fontenoy
75352 Paris 07 SP
France

Tel: +33 (0) 1 45 68 10 00
Fax: +33 (0) 1 45 68 56 29
Contact the contributor: ie@unesco.org

UNESCO

Other related links:
'Including disabled children in regular schools: the Ugandan experience'

'Poverty and disability: Breaking the vicious cycle through inclusion'

'Rural India: forever a hostile environment for the disabled?'

Take a look at the National Center for the Dissemination of Disability Research

The Enabling Education Network (EENet) has resources on inclusive education worldwide