The road to inclusive education and supporting children with disabilities on the journey

Written by Praveen Kumar Gurunath, Lead Advisor for Social Inclusion at VSO. 

I have been educated through inclusive education and have a lived experience of disability being visually impaired in India. I believe that the basic aspects that can bring about change in inclusive education are to have a positive attitude towards disability and recognise that all children have an equal right to education. It’s something we should all be standing for. 

It is crucial to recognise the engagement of parents, teachers, school leaders, and parent-teacher associations to ensure that learning environments can be created for learners with disabilities. From my own personal experience as an inclusive education practitioner, the use of appropriate learning materials that have a universal design, as well as access to assistive devices for learning such as recorders, braille, and sign language, can all make a difference to the learning experience of students with disabilities.  

As a mainstream development organisation, over the years we have realised that it is possible to promote the inclusion of persons with disabilities within our interventions of education, health, and livelihoods. We have promoted inclusive education and our strategy has been to bring about systemic change by building the capacity of the education ecosystem on disability inclusion and strengthening structures by overcoming barriers for learners with disabilities in mainstream education. On the other hand, we have been working at the individual and family level to provide support and linkages to services in their own communities. 

Our Building Learning Foundation (BLF) project in Rwanda is a great example of working at a systemic level. We work across 30 districts by recruiting Special Needs Education Coordinators (SNECOS). The primary role of these coordinators is to strengthen the ecosystem in the schools for ensuring the universal design of learning, effective inclusion of all children in lessons, as well as adapted and additional support for children.  

We also utilise Inclusive Education Focal Teachers to enhance and build the capacity of teachers at the school level and headteachers who support colleague school leaders to spread good practice and design inclusive learning approaches.  

Currently in the BLF project, which is funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office (FCDO), we are engaging 468 Inclusive Education Focal Teachers who are trained on inclusive education by SNECOs to ensure a wider reach and project longevity. 

In addition, we have established partnerships with the governments of Rwanda, Nepal, Kenya, Myanmar, and Malawi to strengthen the capacity of teachers. VSO volunteers continue to provide their expertise as technical experts in this area and as an example of their work, have also been producing content such as self-learning sign language videos in Nepal and Nigeria ensuring learning of deaf and hard of hearing children. Check out this video of Pooja raising awareness on COVID-19:

Working at the individual and family level, our interventions promote awareness of the importance of education for children with disabilities amongst family members and communities. We are actively preparing learners with disabilities to attend school through projects such as ENGAGE in Nepal and the Right to Education and Life for Children with Disabilities (RELI) project in Kenya. This includes community and family level sensitization, identifying needs of learners with disabilities, assessments to create pathways that enable the creation of learning, personal social and psychosocial support to parents and learners with disabilities. Linking them to assistive devices and learning materials that are accessible. 

In spite of the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures, in our recent midline evaluation for ENGAGE, children with disabilities have made impressive learning gains. Other successful outcomes included that:

• 97.4% of the girls aged 10-14 had a successful transition (to school, non-formal education)
• 85.8% of the girls aged 15-19 of the learning cohort successfully transitioned to school, non-formal education, and engaged in vocational training
• 100% of the girls aged 15-19 of vocation training/small business cohort successfully transitioned to vocational training

This is a testimony of how children with disabilities can realise their full potential if they are provided with a safe learning environment and appropriate support that they need with learning.  

Working at a policy level is also important to achieve this, as we can continue to have the right conversations around disability. By influencing policy to include persons with disabilities, we can ensure that they are represented and recognised. VSO has contributed to the development of inclusive education and equity policy guidelines and plans in Nepal as well as the revision of the pre-service teacher training programme in support of the Early Childcare Care and Development (ECCD) policy in Myanmar. This has brought about a change in approach and ensured inclusion at the implementation level and building capacity of teachers and their understanding on disability at the pre-service level.  

By working at these levels alongside people within the community, the future does look bright for inclusive education. The Global Disability Summit that is currently underway gives hope and builds on knowledge to the discourse on disability inclusion. It is also a call to all mainstream development organisations to ensure that their approaches and interventions include the 15% of the world’s population of persons with disabilities who are often left behind from any development intervention.