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Right from the start: build inclusive societies through inclusive early childhood education

GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT TEAM
July 2021

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Early childhood education has the potential to expand opportunities for disadvantaged children, provided that programmes use inclusion as a guiding principle. While the international community has committed to inclusive education, countries vary in their efforts to extend this goal to early childhood. Universal access is the basis of inclusion, and countries must address barriers related to socio-economic status, ethnicity, gender, language, disability and remoteness. Cooperation among multiple actors to identify special needs early and provide integrated services is needed, as are inclusive curricula that support children’s socioemotional development and identity formation. Finally, educators must be given the knowledge, training, and support to implement inclusive practices and work with families from all backgrounds

 

Policy paper 46.

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)

Inclusion and education: All means all. Global Education Monitoring (GEM) report 2020

GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT TEAM
June 2020

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The 2020 GEM Report assesses progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda. The Report also addresses inclusion in education, drawing attention to all those excluded from education, because of background or ability. The Report is motivated by the explicit reference to inclusion in the 2015 Incheon Declaration, and the call to ensure an inclusive and equitable quality education in the formulation of SDG 4, the global goal for education. It reminds us that, no matter what argument may be built to the contrary, we have a moral imperative to ensure every child has a right to an appropriate education of high quality.

The Report also explores the challenges holding us back from achieving this vision and demonstrates concrete policy examples from countries managing to tackle them with success. These include differing understandings of the word inclusion, lack of teacher support, absence of data on those excluded from education, inappropriate infrastructure, persistence of parallel systems and special schools, lack of political will and community support, untargeted finance, uncoordinated governance, multiple but inconsistent laws, and policies that are not being followed through.

Profiles Enhancing Education Reviews (PEER)

GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT TEAM
June 2020

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The PEER on-line tool has been designed to support the monitoring of national education laws and policies. It provides systematic, comprehensive information on laws and policies for every country in the world and is meant to support policy dialogue and peer learning.

The first set of country profiles cover inclusion and education, the theme of the 2020 GEM Report

Global education monitoring report, 2020, Latin America and the Caribbean: inclusion and education: all means all

GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT TEAM
LABORATORY OF EDUCATION RESEARCH AND INNOVATION FOR LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (SUMMA)
UNESCO OFFICE SANTIAGO AND REGIONAL BUREAU FOR EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN (OREALC/UNESCO)
2020

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This regional report on inclusion and education in Latin America and the Caribbean offers a deep dive into the core challenges and key solutions for greater inclusion, in a region characterized for having the largest and most challenging socio-economic inequalities in the world.

In the framework of this report, 29 in-depth case studies from the region covering 8 dimensions of exclusion were prepared. The Report covers access to education of Venezuelan migrants in Colombia and Haitians in Dominican Republic; remoteness in Suriname and Brazil; disability in Nicaragua; girls in Peru and boys in Jamaica; sexual orientation in Mexico and Chile; and youth incarceration in Uruguay. It also explores how the Covid-19 pandemic has further exposed and deepened the disparities that already existed in education.

Chapter 2 analyses the role of legal tools in supporting the development of inclusive education. Chapter 3 addresses governance and finance. Chapter 4 discusses the politically complicated issue of how curricula and learning materials are adapted to the principles of inclusive education. Chapter 5 looks at ways teachers can support the case for inclusion, considers their needs, and examines how well governments help them prepare to meet the inclusion challenge.  Chapter 6 examines school-level factors. Chapter 7 examines communities’ crucial role in achieving inclusive education. After these chapters addressing the main inclusion challenges, Chapter 8 looks at them all through the lens of COVID-19. 

Global education monitoring report, 2019: migration, displacement and education: building bridges, not walls

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)
et al
2018

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“The 2019 GEM Report continues its assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda.


Its main focus is on the theme of migration and displacement. It presents evidence on the implications of different types of migration and displacement for education systems but also the impact that reforming education curricula and approaches to pedagogy and teacher preparation can have on addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by migration and displacement. It gives voice to experiences in host and home communities.


With the help of case studies, it illustrates approaches which work and could be scaled up. In this way, it aims to be a tool for practitioners. It will make the case for investing in education of good quality in rural areas suffering from depopulation and in slum areas suffering from large population inflows; in countries with high rates of emigration and those with high rates of immigration; in short-term refugee emergencies and in protracted crises. Its analysis, conclusions and recommendations advance the aims of SDG 4 and its call to leave no one behind.”

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. 

Education 2030 Incheon Declaration And Framework for action towards inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning for all

WORLD EDUCATION FORUM 2015
2015

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UNESCO together with UNICEF, the World Bank, UNFPA, UNDP, UN Women and UNHCR organized the World Education Forum 2015 in Incheon, Republic of Korea, from 19 – 22 May 2015, hosted by the Republic of Korea. Over 1,600 participants from 160 countries, including over 120 Ministers, heads and members of delegations, heads of agencies and officials of multilateral and bilateral organizations, and representatives of civil society, the teaching profession, youth and the private sector, adopted the Incheon Declaration for Education 2030, which sets out a new vision for education for the next fifteen years.

Towards 2030: a new vision for education

Our vision is to transform lives through education, recognizing the important role of education as a main driver of development and in achieving the other proposed SDGs. We commit with a sense of urgency to a single, renewed education agenda that is holistic, ambitious and aspirational, leaving no one behind. This new vision is fully captured by the proposed SDG 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and its corresponding targets. It is transformative and universal, attends to the ‘unfinished business’ of the EFA agenda and the education-related MDGs, and addresses global and national education challenges. It is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development based on human rights and dignity; social justice; inclusion; protection; cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity; and shared responsibility and accountability. We reaffirm that education is a public good, a fundamental human right and a basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights. It is essential for peace, tolerance, human fulfilment and sustainable development. We recognize education as key to achieving full employment and poverty eradication. We will focus our efforts on access, equity and inclusion, quality and learning outcomes, within a lifelong learning approach.

 

Action and commitments required to implement the agenda are presented.

Accessible ICTs and personalized learning for students with disabilities : a dialogue among educators, industry, government and civil society

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)
2011

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"The use of technology in education plays a particularly vital role by enabling flexible curriculum development and assisting students with disabilities to participate as equals in the learning experience. The recommendations contained in this report target teachers, policy makers and administrators. The main recommendations centre on a number of core themes that include maximising the use of the myriad of accessibility features in mainstream ICTs such as personal computers, tablet PCs, mobile phones etc. already in use in classrooms; empowering students to learn their own preferences and settings when using technology for learning and removing attitudinal barriers to the use of technology for inclusive education, in particular those of teachers who may struggle with modern ICTs"
Collaborative Expert Meeting Report
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris
17 -18 November 2011

Special needs in the classroom : a teacher education guide

AINSCOW, Mel
2004

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An updated version of UNESCO's training pack developed in the early 1990s for teachers learning about inclusion. It has been used in over 50 countries and has been adapted to different countries' contexts. This guide is a source of ideas for educators wishing to improve teachers’ skills in dealing with pupil diversity in mainstream schools. It offers advice on teacher education methods, including accounts of initiatives already undertaken in various parts of the world. The book emphasises the importance of teacher development, both pre-service and in-service, and demonstrates how pupil diversity in mainstream schools can be a positive influence on the life of the school

Overcoming exclusion through inclusive approaches in education : a challenge and a vision

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)
2003

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Paper seeking to map out inclusive approaches in education as a strategy to achieve the goal of education for all. It aims to construct a coherent conceptual and contextual policy framework in order to provide access and quality in basic education for all children and young people, and explores the implications for education systems so that these needs can be addressed and responded to in mainstream education whether it is formal or non-formal

The Salamanca statement and framework for action on special needs education

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)
Ministry of Education and Science, Spain
1994

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The World conference on special needs education: access and quality launched the concept of inclusive education. The Salamanca statement is a major international policy document, outlining the global consensus on the needs for educational reform and the policies and strategies needed to include disabled children in the education system

Inclusion in education

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO)

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This section of the UNESCO's education website hosts definitions of concepts, policies and publications relating to inclusive education. UNESCO has identified certain issues as 'flagship initiatives', to strengthen efforts at addressing the issues through partnerships between UN bodies and other stakeholders. Case studies, support materials for teachers and those promoting inclusive education, and a set of guides to the education of different groups of learners are also available in the online materials section

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