| The World Health Organization (WHO) maintains that around 10 percent of the 200 million children and young people of the world have physical, sensory, intellectual or mental health impairments and that around 80 percent of them live in developing countries.
And even though international momentum and legislations have been continuously advocating for the rights of all persons with disabilities, a lot of children with disabilities still experience a poor start in life, deprived of basic opportunities to develop their full potential to participate in society. Does this “reality check” make the “Education for All” goal a myth or a forthcoming reality?
This issue of the Disability Monitor Initiative Journal focuses on the right of persons, specifically children, with disabilities to access education ten (10) years after the “World Conference of Education for All” (Jomtien 1990 and Dakar 2000) that launched the Education for All (EFA) movement.
“ The Salamanca Declaration urges governments to give topmost priority to the improvement of their educational systems, in their policies and budgets, to ensure that all children are enrolled in them regardless of their individual differences and difficulties.”
Despite the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) by many States and the entry into force of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, children with disabilities are still confronted with huge challenges and barriers preventing them to access education on equal basis with others.
It is a known fact that human rights instruments adopted by the United Nations have provided the inspiration and legal basis for a movement towards inclusion of children and persons with disabilities to be established. Inclusion implies the recognition of all children as full members of society, respecting their rights regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, social status or impairment (See a short interview with Fadia Farah on gender and a study on the status of refugee children with disabilities in Lebanon).
The concept also entails the creation of a supportive, barrier-free environment that would facilitate the enjoyment of these rights (See our checklist on school accessibility). It also means changing the public’s attitude towards children perceived to be different; in the context of education, this specifically means the creation of a barrier-free and child-focused learning environment, including the early years.
Inclusion is a process that gives all children, including those with disabilities, the experience to grow up in an environment where diversity and difference is a norm rather than the exception as explicated in Soha Tabbal’s “Labeling is Disabling”.
These concepts make us consider how children with disabilities access education in difficult and crises situations where the State is constantly challenged by other “priorities” such as security and sustainability (See our interviews with Mrs. Rima Zeid Al Keilani, Director General of Counseling and Special Education in the Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Palestine and Mrs. Sanaa Tayeh, Teacher at the Virgin Mary Primary School for Girls in Palestine).
Although there is a growing consensus towards inclusive education, the debate around its feasibility and the role of special education is very lively, and this DMI-ME journal issue gives an overview of the different opinions nourishing this debate in which right to education is always considered as paramount but where the means of enforcing it are different (see debates in this issue).
Many initiatives in the Middle-East, carried out by civil society or governments are paving the way to enforce the right to education without discrimination but what remains certain is that the journey towards achieving full inclusion is and will be paved with challenges.
The Education For All aims to meet the learning needs of all children, youth
and adults by 2015 through six (6) internationally agreed upon education goals :
Goal 1: Expand early childhood care and education
Goal 2: Provide free and compulsory primary education for all
Goal 3: Promote learning and life skills for young people and adults
Goal 4: Increase adult literacy by 50 percent
Goal 5: Achieve gender parity by 2005, gender equality by 2015
Goal 6: Improve the quality of education
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