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Bridging the Gap: Examining disability and development in four African countries. The case for equitable education

GROCE, Nora
et al
June 2018

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Over the course of a three-year project the Leonard Cheshire Research Centre worked with research teams in four countries: Kenya, Sierra Leone, Uganda and Zambia to better understand the relationship between disability and development in each country across four domains: education, health, labour markets and social protection. This mixed methods research used a range of interrelated components, including policy and secondary data analysis, a household survey of 4,839 households (13,597 adults and 10,756 children), 55 focus group discussions and 112 key informant interviews across the four countries. 

 

This report explores key findings in relation to education. Key findings discussed include school attendance, cost of education, inability to learn and gap in educational attainment.

The impact of an inclusive education intervention on teacher preparedness to educate children with disabilities within the Lakes Region of Kenya

CAREW, Mark
DELUCCA, Marcella
GROCE, Nora
KETT, Maria
February 2018

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There has been little empirical study within low- and middle-income countries on how to effectively prepare teachers to educate children with disabilities. This paper reports on the impact of an intervention designed to increase teaching self-efficacy, improve inclusive beliefs, attitudes and practices, and reduce concerns around the inclusion of children with disabilities within the Lakes region of Kenya. A longitudinal survey was conducted with in-service teachers (matched N = 123) before and after they had participated in a comprehensive intervention programme, delivered in the field by Leonard Cheshire Disability. Results showed that the intervention increased teaching self-efficacy, produced more favourable cognitive and affective attitudes toward inclusive education, and reduced teacher concerns. However, there was little evidence regarding the impact on inclusive classroom practices. The increase in teaching self-efficacy over the intervention period was also found to predict concerns over time. Results are discussed in terms of implications for international efforts, as well as national efforts within Kenya to promote inclusive education.

International Journal of Inclusive Education, vol.23, no.3, Feb 2018
https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2018.1430181

Disabling streets or disabling education? Challenging a deficit model of street-connectedness

CORCORAN, Su Lyn
2015

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Current interventions aiming to assist street-connected children in making the transition from the street, prioritise a return to mainstream primary education. In so doing, implementing organisations equate their ideas of a normative childhood with school attendance. This article challenges the appropriateness of such priorities by exploring the experiences of teachers in four Central Kenya primary schools and examining Kenyan education policy related to street-connected children. The paper argues that teachers’ belief in their inability to support the learning of street-connected children alongside the linguistic loopholes within the wording of educational policy to allow for alternative education systems, formal education can further compound processes of marginalisation. Findings further indicate that current education policy and practice can fail to effectively incorporate street-connected children and to some extent be described as disabling.

 

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 2

Working within the tensions of disability and education in post-colonial Kenya: Toward a praxis of critical disability studies

ELDER, Brent C
FOLEY, Alan
2015

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This paper explores emerging and evolving critical approaches to inclusive education development work in the postcolonial, global South context of Kenya. Taking an ontoformative (Connell, 2011) perspective of disability, we view disability as a dynamic process inherently tied to social contexts and their fluid effects on disabled bodies. Thus, not all impairments are a natural form of human diversity, and many are imposed on bodies in underdeveloped countries through oppressive imported Western practices. In this paper we present our work not as models of ‘what to do’ or ‘what not to do’ in development work. Rather we offer a reflection on the evolution of our understanding and approach to this work from being merely ‘progressive’ (while further exporting Northern theory), toward a more critical and self-reflexive approach. We hope this is a starting point in a dialogical process of mutual knowledge production between the global North and South that leads to better ways of conceptualizing and supporting people with disabilities in the global South.

 

Disability and the Global South (DGS), 2015, Vol. 2 No. 3

Signs for a good education

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
October 2013

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This video highlights some of the challenges faced by deaf children and young people, and the opportunities sign language education offers them

Supporting HIV-positive teachers in East and Southern Africa

MALLOURIS, Chrstoforos
BOLER, Tania
September 2007

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This report provides an overview of the impact of HIV on teachers and the specific issues HIV-positive teachers face. It also summarises support mechanisms for teachers with HIV and presents key conclusions and recommendations from the consultation regarding how the education sector can support HIV-positive teachers. The report is the result of a consultation involving a range of different stakeholders including representatives of Ministries of Education, teachers' unions and HIV-positive teachers' networks from six countries in East and Southern Africa

Teachers matter : baseline findings on the HIV-related needs of Kenyan teachers

KIRAGU, K.
et al
August 2006

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This paper summarises a baseline study on assessing changes in teachers’ knowledge of HIV & AIDS, risk behaviours (e.g., multiple partners and unprotected sex), and utilisation of voluntary counselling and testing. The workplace model will also aim to assist teachers who are infected with and affected by the disease through helping them to identify and access available treatment, care, and support community resources

State of the world's children 2004 : ­girls, education and development

BELLAMY, Carol
2003

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This year's report focuses on girls' education and its implica- tions for development. It presents the many benefits of educat- ing girls, examines the barriers that keep more girls out of school and the lasting impact such exclusion has on a country's development, details why education is the most effective means of combating many of the most profound challenges to human development and presents concrete and practical recommendations for the way forward

The sound of silence : difficulties in communicating on HIV/AIDS in schools

BOLER, Tania
et al
2003

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This report describes the difficulties in communicating on HIV/AIDS in schools. It includes experiences from India and Kenya, and reports the findings of a survey carried out by ActionAid researchers in both countries in 2002. The research examines parental demand for HIV/AIDS education. It then explroes teh role that schools have in meeting this demand and other sources that young people might use to learn about HIV and AIDS. The final section places HIV/AIDS communication in the wider context of a crisis in education in resource-poor settings, and highlights some of the barriers or silences in communication around HIV/AIDS. Among its conclusions is the suggestion that HIV/AIDS education be placed in the context of the community

In the web of cultural transition : a tracer study of children in Embu District, Kenya

NJENGA, Ann
KABIRU, Margaret
November 2001

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The study compares children who were taught by preschool teachers trained in the two-year course run by District Centres for Early Childhood Education (DICECE) with those who had untrained teachers. The study, carried out in Embu District (Kenya), found significant differences between the two groups of children particularly in terms of performance in primary schools, with children cared for by DICECE-trained teachers faring better, and in relation to absenteeism, repetition and dropout rates

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