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Background: Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of young people including those with disabilities is a major public health concern globally. However, available evidence on their use of sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) is inconsistent.Object

KUMI-KYEREME, Akwasi
2021

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Background:Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) of young people including those with disabilities is a major public health concern globally. However, available evidence on their use of sexual and reproductive health services (SRHS) is inconsistent.


Objective:This study investigated utilisation of SRHS amongst the in-school young people with disabilities (YPWDs) in Ghana using the healthcare utilisation model.


Methods: Guided by the cross-sectional study design, a questionnaire was used to obtain data from 2114 blind and deaf pupils or students in the age group 10-24 years, sampled from 15 purposively selected special schools for the deaf and the blind in Ghana.


Results: About seven out of every 10 respondents had ever utilised SRHS. The proportion was higher amongst the males (67.8%) compared with the females (62.8%). Young persons with disabilities in the coastal (OR = 0.03, 95% CI = 0.01–0.22) and middle (OR = 0.06, 95% CI = 0.01–0.44) zones were less likely to have ever utilised SRHS compared with those in the northern ecological zone. The blind pupils or students were more likely to have ever utilised SRHS than the deaf (OR = 1.45, 95% CI = 1.26–3.11).


Conclusions: Generally, SRHS utilisation amongst the in-school YPWDs in Ghana is high but significantly associated with some predisposing, need and enabling or disabling factors. This underscores the need for policymakers to consider in-school YPWDs as a heterogeneous group in the design and implementation of SRHS programmes. The Ghana Education Service in collaboration with the Ghana Health Service should adopt appropriate pragmatic measures and targeted interventions in the special schools to address the SRH needs of the pupils or students.

The community-based actions that removed barriers to inclusive education in Kenya

ELDER, Brent C
PAYNE, Mbuh
OSWAGO, Benson
2021

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This article represents a culmination of inclusive education projects implemented in western Kenya since 2010. In this article, we discuss the 2018 iteration of this on-going community-based participatory research (CBPR)-informed project in which we utilised multiple theoretical frameworks to inform our methods in this project, including decolonising methodologies and Critical Disability Studies (CDS). We conducted qualitative interviews as a way to learn about the ways in which inclusion committees facilitated the partial removal of barriers to the development of an inclusive education system in the region over the last decade. In this article, we provide an overview of the barriers to inclusive education in the global South and sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on western Kenya. We present findings that highlight the various inclusion committee actions that contributed to the partial removal of barriers which included: sensitising communities about inclusive education; promoting access to inclusive education; and implementing inclusive strategies like income generating activities (IGAs) and co-teaching. We conclude the article by suggesting potential ways forward for inclusive education in Kenya including: a multi-sector approach for family supports; providing government incentives to inclusive schools; and promoting IGAs and co-teaching practices in teacher education programs and in schools.

Ensuring the right to quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities: From commitment to action

UNESCO
November 2020

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The international symposium "Ensuring the right to quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities: From commitment to action", co-organized by UNESCO, the Leonard Cheshire, and the Ministry of Education of Portugal brought together a wide range of stakeholders across the globe to discuss progress, successes achieved and challenges to ensure full participation and access to quality learning opportunities for all learners.

The symposium aims were to:

  • review persisting, as well as new challenges, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that are hindering the fulfilment of the right to inclusive education for learners with disabilities.
  • facilitate the exchange of experiences on factors influencing successful inclusive policies and practices for learners with disabilities and strengthen dialogue and cooperation amongst stakeholders at policy and practice levels.
  • explore how the inclusion of learners with disabilities in inclusive settings can be more effectively addressed by governments with regards to the commitments of Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the CRPD General Comment 4 on article 24, and Sustainable Development 4 SDG 4, to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The programme included:

Opening session - Accelerating efforts towards inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 1 - From legislation to inclusive practices: Re-designing policy frameworks, funding and monitoring arrangements across sectors for inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 2 - Revisiting the teaching and learning process to ensure access and participation of learners with disabilities.

Session 3 - Moving towards inclusive and safe learning environments, including by addressing violence and bullying against learners with disabilities.
 

Closing session - Rebuilding a Stronger Global Disability Inclusive Education System post COVID-19. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

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.

Differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education: a systematic review and narrative synthesis

LINDNER, Katharina-Theresa
SCHWAB, Susanne
2020

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This study integrates research about differentiation and individualisation in inclusive education since the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2006 (United Nations, 2006). The concept of inclusive education for all learners increases the requirement for teachers to create educational spaces that encourage stimulating teaching and learning processes. Accordingly, a methodological shift from the traditional ‘one-size-fits-all’ model to individualised teaching and learning offers a starting point for educational equity. The aim of this paper is to investigate the progress of differentiated and individualised teaching practices in inclusive classroom settings considering collaboration and teamwork, instructional practices, organisational practices and social/emotional/behavioural practices (see Finkelstein, Sharma, & Furlonger, 2019. “The Inclusive Practices of Classroom Teachers: A Scoping Review and Thematic Analysis.” International Journal of Inclusive Education, 1–28). Results of a criteria-based review considering papers from 2008 to December 2018 encompass 17 articles that were included in the narrative synthesis. Results indicated that the following aspects are characteristic of inclusive education: collaboration and co-teaching, grouping, modification (of assessment, content, extent, instruction, learning environment, material, process, product and time frame), individual motivation and feedback, and personnel support of students. Implications of the findings and gaps in the research have been outlined.

Disability Royal Commission: WWDA’s response to education and learning issues paper

SANDS, Therese
April 2020

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In 2019 the Disability Royal Commission released an issues paper on education and learning. The issues paper asked 13 questions based on some of the key issues and barriers experienced by students with disability.

Women With Disabilities Australia (WWDA) have now submitted their response to the issues paper which highlights key recommendations to improve the lives and experiences of students with disability. The recommendations stem from the following key areas:

  • Inclusive education
  • Intersectionality
  • Inequality and discrimination underpin violence
  • Restrictive practices – torture and ill-treatment
  • Exposing violence – desegregated data and intersectionality
  • Building strengths through inclusive education

Instating settings of emergency education in Vienna: temporary schooling of pupils with forced migration backgrounds

PROYER, Michelle
BIEWER, Gottfried
KREUTER, Linda
WEIß, Jekaterina
2019

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In the year 2015, Austria was one of the main European destinations of displaced persons. According to education authoritiesaround 15,000 children with a forced migration background of school age who arrived in Austria over the course of a few months from late2015 to the beginning of 2016 called for immediate and partly temporary solutions. Due to Austrian legislation and unlike other countries,every child living in Austria between the ages of six to fifteen (or for nine years of schooling) is entitled to receive compulsory education. Though the school administration of Vienna generally promotes an inclusive approach to education in regular schools, schools inneighbourhoods with a large refugee population were reportedly unable to provide appropriate and adequate education for all children. Inresponse, the local school authority in Vienna decided to establish temporary classrooms in refugee accommodations. This article describesand analyses the emergence of new educational structures from the point of view of university students and lecturers who took part in theone and a half years of its implementation. The article thereby aims to document specific perspectives on educational emergency measuresat a certain point of time. In both the primary and secondary sectors, the emergence of a new temporary field of specialised and exceptional education were observed and recorded in a thick description of dynamic processes of trans-institutional, trans-organisational, transprofessional, communal, and individual development. Thus, the article presents a multifaceted picture of problems in refugee education under exceptional circumstances. The findings illustrate how insufficient educational opportunities for those falling outside the age of compulsory schooling – in particular, preschool children as well as youth older than fifteen – diminish possibilities for the inclusion of these children within and beyond education.

A Document Review of Exclusionary Practices in the Context of Australian School Education Policy

IACONO,Teresa
KEEFFE, Mary
KENNY, Amanda
MCKINSTRY, Carol
2019

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Internationally, there is a commitment to inclusive education for students with disability. In Australia, equality of access to mainstream schools is a key policy feature, with educational exclusion of children with disability being unlawful. In this review, the aim was to identify and analyze contemporary documents that point to failures in inclusive policy and legislation in Australia and the state of Victoria by demonstrating educational exclusion of school students with disability. A search of the gray literature was conducted to identify relevant documents from 2010 to 2017. Reference lists of retrieved documents were also searched for other sources. The review included 23 documents and findings demonstrated that the needs of children and families are often not met, with a disconnection evident between inclusive educational policy, legislation, and practices that exclude children with disability from mainstream education. Restrictive practices and gatekeeping act to dissuade families from enrolling children in mainstream education, with many seeking enrolment in special schools. However, concerns with special school practices, such as the use of restrictive interventions have been documented. Parents have resorted to homeschooling, with associated emotional and economic consequences. Tensions between schools and parents were evident, with parents not always having the opportunity to be fully involved in decision-making processes and planning. The key finding of this review was a clear gap between policy and legislative intentions and practices in schools. Lack of clarity on reasonable adjustments and an underpinning research evidence base to policy results in schools being left to develop their own practices. Strong leadership is needed from principals, and a whole of school commitment, to traverse policy practice gaps that continue to impact on the ability of children with disability to be well-supported in accessing mainstream schools.

Investigating barriers teachers face in the implementation of inclusive education in high schools in Gege branch, Swaziland

ZWANE, Sifiso L.
MALALE, Matome M.
2018

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Background: The kingdom of Swaziland is a signatory to policies on universal education that ensure high quality basic education for all. Education for All is a commitment to provide equal opportunities for all children and the youth as provided for in the country’s constitution of 2005. The tone for the introduction of inclusive education in Swaziland was inevitably set by the new constitution of 2005. Since then several policies have been produced by the government, all aimed at providing equal education opportunities to all children in the country. These policies include the Swaziland National Children’s Policy (2009), Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan (2006) and Draft Inclusive Education Policy (2008). The Education for All Policy (2010) is the policy that upon implementation became a stimulus for the introduction of inclusive education into mainstream schools; as a result, all teachers in the country’s schools were expected to be competent enough to teach learners with a wide range of educational needs. However, in-service teachers received inadequate staff development and training ahead of the implementation of inclusive education and a majority of teachers were not professionally developed for inclusive education, as pre-service students at tertiary training level.

 

Objectives: This study investigated barriers in the implementation of inclusive education at high schools in the Gege branch, Swaziland, with a view to finding lasting solutions to inform research and government policy.

 

Method: This research is a qualitative interpretive case study based on selected schools in the Gege branch of schools. Data was obtained through semi-structured research interviews and document analysis. It was processed and analysed through data coding, unitising, categorising and emergence of themes, which became the findings of the study.

 

Results: Lack of facilities in the governments’ schools and teachers’ incompetence in identifying learners facing learning challenges in their classrooms are some barriers to inclusivity.

 

Conclusion: The study concludes that there is a need for the Ministry of Education and Training to craft an inclusive curriculum in line with the inclusive policy in order to cater for the diverse educational needs of all learners in mainstream schools. It is thought that instituting a vibrant in-service and pre-service teacher training programme by the Ministry of Education and Training will increase teachers’ capacity to a level where teaching in inclusive classrooms does not negatively affect their competence.

A guide for ensuring equity and inclusion in education

UNESCO
July 2017

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This guide is intended to support countries in embedding inclusion and equity in educational policy. It supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on education calls for inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030. The guide is intended for use primarily by key government education policy-makers working with key stakeholders. The guide provides an assessment framework that can serve to: review how well equity and inclusion currently figure in existing policies; decide which actions are needed to improve policies and their implementation towards equitable and inclusive education systems; and monitor progress. The guide includes evidence that informs the assessment framework, examples of initiatives that are contributing to more inclusive and equitable education systems in different parts of the world, and recommendations for further reading. 

Still left behind: Pathways to inclusive education for girls with disabilities

ABU AL-GHAIB, Ola
ANDRAE, Karen
GONDWE, Rachel
LEONARD CHESHIRE DISABILITY
June 2017

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This progress review aims to: provide a synthesis of the understanding of the additional barriers that girls with disabilities face in education; highlight effective or promising approaches and programmes addressing these barriers, including policies and legislation; point to gaps in evidence; and provide recommendations on a way forward. An internet search of relevant grey and academic literature on gender-responsive inclusive education was carried out. A search of websites of (inter) national non-governmental organisations, donors, and research institutions on the subject of gender-responsive inclusive education was conducted. In addition, requests for information on gender-responsive inclusive education interventions were submitted to platforms such as the Pelican Initiative and the Gender and Development Network UK. Subsequent referral to contact persons was followed up via email and phone with requests for sharing of studies, evaluations, progress reports, and other relevant documents of interventions.

Support and guidance for the report provided by UN Girls’ Education Initiative (UNGEI)

Disability law and reasonable accommodation beyond employment. A legal analysis of the situation in EU Member States.

EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTOR-GENERAL FOR JUSTICE AND CONSUMERS
WADDINGTON, Lisa
BRODERICK, Andrea
POULOS, Anne
November 2016

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This report analyses the situation in the 28 EU Member States with regard to obligations to provide reasonable accommodation outside the field of employment. More specifically, the report outlines the duties contained in Member States’ laws and policies with respect to reasonable accommodation in the areas covered by the 2008 proposal of the European Commission for a directive to protect people from discrimination on the ground of disability, as well as discrimination on a number of other grounds (henceforth 2008 proposal). The 2008 proposal addresses the fields of social protection, including social security, healthcare and social housing; education; and access to, and supply of, goods and services, including housing. It seeks to prohibit six kinds of discrimination including, in the context of disability, an unjustified denial of a reasonable accommodation

DOI: 10.2838/15305

Toolkit on disability for Africa

UNITED NATIONS DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL AFFAIRS (UNDESA)
November 2016

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A Toolkit on Disability for Africa has been developed by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Division for Social Policy and Development (DSPD). It is designed for the African context and aims to:

  • Provide practical tools on various disability-related issues to government officials, members of parliament, civil and public servants at all levels, disabled persons organizations (DPOs) and all those with an interest in the inclusion of persons with disabilities in society and development;
  • Support the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and disability-inclusive development;
  • Offer examples of good practices from many countries in the African region.

 

Toolkit Modules:

  • UN DESA toolkit on CRPD – Trainers’ tips
  • Introducing the UNCRPD
  • Frameworks for implementing and monitoring the UNCRPD
  • Disability-inclusive development
  • Accessibility
  • Building multi-stakeholders partnerships for disability inclusion
  • National plans on disability
  • Legislating for disability rights
  • Access to justice for persons with disabilities
  • The rights of persons with disabilities to work
  • Inclusive health services for persons with disabilities
  • Participation in political and public life
  • Information and communication technology (ICT) and disability
  • Culture, beliefs, and disability
  • Inclusive education

Realising UNCRPD : learning from inclusive practices in education and employment|Case studies in education and employment

HIRANANDANI, Vanmala
KUMAR, Arun
SONPAL, Deepa
July 2011

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"This document compiles the findings from the case studies and provides a synthesis of their inclusive practices. Further, it provides key pointers for future direction which are open for further debate. The key purpose of this document is to facilitate wider dissemination of inclusive practices in accessible formats and generate dialogue with various, thus serving an essential educational purpose"

Policy paper : making inclusive education a reality

MYERS, Juliette
BAGREE, Sunit
July 2011

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This paper describes the role of inclusive education and the differences with integrated and special educations, emphasising that inclusive education being the system that should be preferred. It provides information about international rights and policies documents that support an international commitment to the education of children and highlights the key challenges and solutions of inclusive education, as well as the duties of national governments and international donors

Imagine the difference : teaching pack

SCOPE
Eds
2007

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This highly accessible toolkit is free and available online after quickly registering with the disability charity, Scope's website. It includes teaching plans, activity sheets and assembly ideas. The purpose is to raise awareness around disability issues and the inclusion of disabled children in primary schools. This resource would be useful to anyone with an interest in education development and approaches in disability

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