2. Context
2.1. The education of children with disabilities is an urgent issue
The number of children of primary school age who are out of school fell from 108 million in 1999 to 61 million in 2010, but progress has stalled in recent years. Although there are 25% more children in secondary school today than in 1999, 71 million adolescents of lower secondary school age were out of school in 2010; as with primary education, progress has stagnated.
Children with disabilities are disproportionately represented among those who are missing out on education. Research indicates that having a disability more than doubles the chance of never enrolling in school in some countries. Disability is often a more significant factor in relation to exclusion from education than gender or geographical location. Coming from a poor family and having a parent with a disability also increases the likelihood of a child being out of school, by 25% in the Philippines and 13% in Uganda.
We also know that the quality of education for those attending school is unsatisfactory. For example, ‘approximately 200 million children are currently in school but are learning very little because of inefficient and inadequate education; between 25% and 75% of children in poor countries cannot read a single word even after several years in school’. As a consequence of these quality issues, children with disabilities who do access education often do not participate on equal terms with their non-disabled peers, or achieve to their full potential. This has enormous implications for their chances of finding decent work and playing an active role in their country’s social, political and economic life.
The international community has committed itself to achieving universal basic education through the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All goals. Yet these frameworks pay insufficient attention to marginalised groups such as children with disabilities – which is a major reason why they continue to miss out on quality education. Education goals, targets and indicators in the post-2015 development framework must be based on human rights principles and focused on eliminating inequalities faced by persons with disabilities (this in turn requires gathering of disaggregated data). Moreover, the education aspects of the new framework need to incentivise states to build and strengthen inclusive systems of education. One vital step that can be taken to this end is to pay greater attention to recruiting, training and supporting teachers to respond to the diverse needs of learners.
2.2. Preparing teachers to teach children with disabilities is essential
A fundamental reason for poor quality education is the severe lack of well-trained teachers who are adequately supported and managed throughout their careers. In Niger, for instance, ‘… there are just 1,059 trained teachers at lower secondary level for 1.4 million children’ – that’s 1,322 children for every trained teacher. Compare this with a pupil to (trained) teacher ratio in the UK of approximately 16:1 in secondary education, and the massive shortage of trained teachers in developing countries like Niger becomes very obvious.
The Global Campaign for Education argues: ‘... high quality education requires sufficient recruitment of teachers who are trained, supported, paid and managed as professionals’. An estimated 1.7 million more primary teaching positions need to be created in the period 2010–2015. Policy-makers also need to better understand teacher attrition (the number of teachers leaving the profession) and work to reduce it. However, improving recruitment levels and reducing attrition must not lead to countries employing less qualified teachers or lowering national standards. Of 100 countries with data on primary education, 33 have less than 75% of teachers trained to the national standard.
National standards for teacher training can vary considerably between countries, and are often inadequate. Teacher training for regular teachers also rarely prepares teachers for working in diverse classrooms, and in particular does not equip them with the confidence, knowledge and skills to effectively support learners with disabilities. This is a key reason why so many children with disabilities remain out of school, or excluded from the learning process within school. If we are to reignite progress towards quality basic education (early childhood, primary and lower secondary schooling) for all, then regular teachers need to be prepared to meet the learning and participation needs of children with disabilities. To do this they need to be given appropriate initial training, ongoing training and professional development, and ongoing access to adequate high quality support and advice from specialist personnel, as the following case study highlights.
Specialist support from itinerant teachers: Uganda
Teachers specially trained to work with children with disabilities can aid the inclusion process in the classroom. Sightsavers supports the training of itinerant teachers (one type of specialist teacher) in a number of countries, including in Uganda. Itinerant teachers perform a range of functions. They find children with disabilities who are not in school and work with their parents and the wider community to ensure that the children will be found a place in school. If a child with disabilities does not feel confident to go to school, itinerant teachers can visit the child at home to help prepare them for school. This support includes helping the child use a white cane or starting to teach them Braille. Itinerant teachers also answer any questions that the parent or child has about school.