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Inclusive education training guide

LEWIS, Ingrid
July 2021

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This package is designed to assist with the training of staff within CBM and its partners. It has been prepared with country and regional advisory staff in mind but will have value for project/ programme management and other staff too. It has been designed for use with small groups of participants (e.g., maximum 10-15).

This training package focuses on inclusive education. It interprets inclusive education in a broad sense as a dual process of bringing about education system change, at all levels of education, to the benefit of all learners; and supporting the needs of individual learners, especially those with disabilities. It is not a training about specific impairments, nor will it show participants how to identify, teach and support learners with specific impairments. Instead the package helps participants to understand better the overarching challenges being faced and the systematic programme and advocacy approaches that CBM, its partners and other similar organisations need to engage with.

 

This training package consists of the following booklets:

A Inclusive education and CBM

B Inclusive education and the community

C Participation and achievement for all learners

D Education system change

Do both ‘get it right’? Inclusion of newly arrived migrant students in Swedish primary schools

TAJIC, Denis
BUNAR, Nihad
2020

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The aim of this article is to advance knowledge on how Swedish primary schools organise education and what strategies they deploy to ensure inclusion and attainment of newly arrived migrant students. The article is based on semi-structured interviews with 30 teachers and school administrators, and one-year of fieldwork undertaken in two multicultural urban primary schools in the Stockholm region. One of the schools initially places students in separate classes, while the other one places them directly into mainstream classes. Both are evoking inclusion and attainment as a reason for using their respective models. As such, do both ‘get it right’? Using inclusion as the theoretical and conceptual framework this article addresses the broader question: How is the meaning of inclusion constructed in the processes of its practical implementation in these two schools? The results show the ambitious tale of inclusion in both schools was, in the process of the construction of its meaning and implementation, reduced to some of its aspects. Teachers and school administrators are allowed to include or leave out of their model whatever they deem necessary, obsolete, expensive or unrealistic and still fitting under the umbrella of inclusion. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, and both schools ‘get it right’ and ‘wrong’ in some aspects.

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

Pre-Primary and Primary Inclusive Education for Tanzania (PPPIET) – Foundation phase : Desk Review presented by the Task Team February 2020

JUDGE, Emma
August 2020

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The Disability Inclusive Development (DID) consortium is working together on the Pre-Primary and Primary Inclusive Education in Tanzania (PPPIET) programme whose ultimate goal is to foster quality sustainable inclusive education for all children with disabilities (CWD) at scale across Tanzania in mainstream pre-primary and primary government schools.  To achieve this, it aims to support collective, coordinated systems change by establishing an agreed common model of basic inclusive pre-primary and primary education in mainstream government schools, and galvanising significant progress in spreading its systematic implementation for all CWD across Tanzania over six years.

 

This task requires the cooperation of government, civil society and DPOs to achieve real change.  No single organisation or government department can achieve inclusive education on its own.  Cooperation between all government ministries, including education, health, finance and social welfare are key to providing individual support to learners with disabilities.  Pooling the skills and resources, and exchanging learnings to achieve quality inclusive education of children can help all involved.  Working together will build collective commitment and action, not just amongst DID consortium members but also across government, donors, education actors and the private sector. 

 

The first part in this process was for the Task Team to conduct a desk review to establish an overview of the current educational context with regards to children with disabilities, including legislative, policies and practice, inclusive education strategies, disability contexts, cultural perspective, interventions, existing assessment and quality assurance processes, and opportunities and challenges. 

Disability Inclusive Development - Nigeria Situational Analysis

THOMPSON, Stephen
June 2020

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This situational analysis (SITAN) addresses the question: “what is the current situation for persons with disabilities in Nigeria?”. It has been prepared for the Disability Inclusive Development programme (which works on access to education, jobs, healthcare, and reduced stigma and discrimination for persons with disabilities in Bangladesh, Jordan, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, and Tanzania), to better understand the current context, including COVID-19, and available evidence in Nigeria. It will be helpful for anyone interested in disability inclusion in Nigeria, especially in relation to stigma, employment, education, health, and humanitarian issues.

Framing heuristics in inclusive education: The case of Uganda’s preservice teacher education programme

NANTONGO, Proscovia S.
October 2019

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Background: Recent education-related research has raised concerns about the persistent exclusion of vulnerable learners in Uganda. The Revised Primary Teacher Education Curriculum of 2013 marked an ambitious yet inconclusive attempt to advance the implementation of inclusive education but has encountered deeply entrenched sociocultural exclusionary practices among education experts.

 

Objectives: This study aimed to explicate education practitioners’ interpretations of Uganda’s flagship inclusive education programme in preservice primary teacher education.

 

Method: Drawing on the conceptual vocabulary of frame analysis and the qualitative analysis of individual and group interviews and classroom observations, the interpretations of inclusive education implementation in preservice primary teacher education in Uganda were examined. The participants included policy design experts, curriculum design experts and classroom practitioners.

 

Results: Three main findings emerged. Firstly, interpretations of inclusive education displayed a narrow framing heuristic of inclusive education as a perfunctory, daily practice rather than a pathway for reflective, inclusive pedagogical engagement. Secondly, the heuristic encouraged the treatment of inclusive pedagogy as a ‘label’ under a specific rubric referring to sensory impairments or disabilities – a historical device for sociocultural exclusion. Thirdly, inclusive education was a praxis but was misframed from its original intentions, causing tension and resentment among practitioners. These findings contribute to the debates on the sustainability of inclusive education beyond preservice teacher education.

 

Conclusion: Uganda’s flagship inclusive education programme in preservice primary teacher education was fraught with tensions, ambiguities and an overt, urgent need for change.

 

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Inclusion and standards achievement: the presence of pupils identified as having special needs as a moderating effect on the national mathematics standards achievements of their classmates

KRAMMER, Mathias
GASTEIGER-KLICPERA, Barbara
HOLZINGER, Andrea
WOHLHART, David
2019

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This article investigates the relationship between the achievement level of students in classes and the presence of students identified as having special needs in inclusive settings. In particular, it examines whether the presence of students with special educational needs in inclusive classrooms has an effect on the national mathematics standards achievement of their fellow students. In order to do so, the national standard scores of approximately 75,000 fourth graders in mathematics were used as dependent variable in multi-level regression modelling. As independent variables at class level the number of students with special needs and at the individual level socio-economic, cultural and ethnic background variables were used together with gender and age. Results show only a very small effect of the presence of students with special needs on the national mathematics standard scores of their classmates. The effect can be either positive or negative depending on further class conditions.

Funding and inclusion in higher education institutions for students with disabilities

CHIWANDIRE, Desiree
VINCENT, Louise
2019

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Background: Historically, challenges faced by students with disabilities (SWDs) in accessing higher education institutions (HEIs) were attributed to limited public funding. The introduction of progressive funding models such as disability scholarships served to widen access to, and participation in, higher education for SWDs. However, recent years have seen these advances threatened by funding cuts and privatisation in higher education.

 

Objectives: In this article, the funding mechanisms of selected developed and developing democratic countries including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa and India are described in order to gain an insight into how such mechanisms enhance access, equal participation, retention, success and equality of outcome for SWDs. The countries selected are often spoken about as exemplars of best practices in relation to widening access and opportunities for SWDs through government mandated funding mechanisms. Method: A critical literature review of the sample countries’ funding mechanisms governing SWDs in higher education and other relevant government documents; secondary academic literature on disability funding; online sources including University World News, University Affairs, newspaper articles, newsletters, literature from bodies such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Disabled World and Parliamentary Monitoring Group. Data were analysed using a theoretically derived directed qualitative content analysis.

 

Results: Barriers which place SWDs at a substantial educational disadvantage compared to their non-disabled peers include bureaucratisation of application processes, cuts in disability funding, means-test requirements, minimal scholarships for supporting part-time and distance learning for SWDs and inadequate financial support to meet the day-to-day costs that arise as a result of disability.

 

Conclusion: Although the steady increase of SWDs accessing HEIs of the sampled countries have been attributed to supportive disability funding policies, notable is the fact that these students are still confronted by insurmountable disability funding-oriented barriers. Thus, we recommend the need for these HEIs to address these challenges as a matter of urgency if they are to respect the rights of SWDs as well as provide them with an enabling environment to succeed academically.

 

African Journal of Disability, Vol 8, 2019

Analysis of Bibliography on Specific Learning Disability in India

VENKATESAN, S
2017

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Aim: This study attempts a comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analysis of un-annotated bibliographic listing of books and citations compiled on specific learning disability published by researchers in India.

 

Method: An online and offline survey covering ISSN journals and ISBN marked books available in print or electronic media was compiled, coded, categorized, and classified by title, theme, year, journals, and names of author/s.

 

Results: The bibliographic search yielded 450 research articles drawn from 196 national and international journals of Indian origin and 29 book titles on the topic of learning disability and/or its equivalents covering themes related to their nature-characteristic (N: 184; 40.89%), therapy-intervention (N: 115; 25.56%), causes-correlates (N: 57; 12.67%), screening-assessment-identification (N: 52; 11.56 %), and epidemiology-prevalence (N: 42; 9.33%).  A decade wise timeline analysis shows an increasing trend in the quantum of publications on learning disability by almost four times from the base years of <=1990s to the contemporary period, along with corresponding shift in the increased use of the term ‘learning disability’ in preference for other older terms (p:<0.05).  

 

Conclusion: On the whole, there seems to be much unused information available about learning disabilities in the country, which now lies widely scattered.

 

Limitations & Recommendation: Although no claim is made that the bibliographic listing is all inclusive, it is recommended that the first step is to have an information gathering mechanism, creation of a dynamic repository, or archival system with retrieval systems in place for prospective researchers on a subject matter of great importance  within the country. 

Inclusive education: A transformation and human rights agenda under spotlight in South Africa

MAGUVHE, Mbulaheni
2015

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This study investigated the progress made in the implementation of inclusive education as a transformation and human rights tool since its inception in 2001. The study was conducted upon realising that most people underestimate the transformation and human rights value that inclusive education strives to maintain. The total number of participants interviewed was 84. Data was collected using semi-structured interview schedules for the teachers and community members, whereafter it was presented in thematic sections and qualitatively examined for meaning. The results showed that participants comprising teachers and community members do not know or understand the transformational and human rights value of inclusive education. The participants seemed to be equally aware of inclusive education, but they rated its success and value differently. The participants concurred that the philosophy of inclusive education was noble, but they differed regarding the extent to which it had transformed, added value or played an advocacy role in the lives of learners and the community at large over the years.

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

Increasing access into higher education: Insights from the 2011 African Network on Evidence-to-Action on Disability Symposium – Education Commission

LYNER-CLEOPHAS, Marcia
SWART, Estelle
CHATAIKA, Tsitsi
BELL, Diane
2014

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This article provides some insights into the challenges regarding inclusion in higher education of students with disabilities. It does this by elucidating aspects of the proceedings of the Education Commission at the African Network on Evidence-to-Action on Disability (AfriNEAD) Symposium, which took place in Zimbabwe in November 2011. The presentations specifically focused on the education of people with disabilities from early childhood through to higher education. This article, however, is informed by presentations focusing on increasing access to higher education. The article is focused on the implementation of evidence in practice, research and policies stemming from rigorous debate and scientific foundations, whilst taking into account the dynamic realities of the higher education context. Themes such as the systemic approach needed for inclusion to be successful, increasing access and the dynamic role of students with disabilities are highlighted.

The implementation of inclusive education in South Africa: Reflections arising from a workshop for teachers and therapists to introduce Universal Design for Learning

DALTON, Elizabeth M
MCKENZIE, Judith A
KAHONDE Callista
2012

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South Africa has adopted an inclusive education policy in order to address barriers to learning in the education system. However, the implementation of this policy is hampered by the lack of teachers’ skills and knowledge in differentiating the curriculum to address a wide range of learning needs. In this paper we provided a background to inclusive education policy in South Africa and a brief exposition of an instructional design approach, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) that addresses a wide range of learning needs in a single classroom. We reported on a workshop conducted with teachers and therapists in South Africa as a first attempt to introduce UDL in this context. Knowledge of UDL was judged to be appropriate and useful by the course participants in the South African context as a strategy for curriculum differentiation in inclusive classrooms. Furthermore, knowledge of the UDL framework facilitates dialogue between teachers and therapists and provides a relatively simple and comprehensive approach for curriculum differentiation. We therefore conclude that there is potential for this approach that can be expanded through further teacher training.

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