40 million disabled children need a teacher

The Global Campaign for Education is using 2006 to highlight the shortage of teachers in developing countries.

Between 14 and 22.5 million teachers will need to be recruited and trained by 2015 if universal primary education is to be achieved by this date .

As part of this, Save the Children, World Vision and Sight Savers International are highlighting the particular issue of disabled children. As well as creating more teachers, action must be taken to create better teachers – teachers who are given the training and support they need to teach every child.

Only 2% of disabled children in developing countries receive an education: one third of the 115 million children out of school have a disability. If the Millennium Development Goal of universal primary education and the goal of Education for All are to be met by 2015, the exclusion of these 40 million disabled children from school must be overcome.

A recent World Bank study indicates that disability is a bigger barrier to school participation than gender, household economic status or rural/urban divide. Without urgent and dedicated action, international commitments on education and poverty reduction will not be met, and 40 million children will be denied an education.

Teachers and Inclusion
Teachers’ attitudes and skills are the key to including disabled children in education. Social prejudices assume that children with learning, speech, physical, cognitive, sensory or emotional impairments are unable to participate in education. If teachers can be supported to challenge these assumptions, disabled children can quickly and straightforwardly be included in school.

Teachers often think they need ‘special skills’ to teach disabled children . However, experience shows that, in the majority of cases, good, clear, accessible and participatory teaching skills are effective in including disabled children in learning, as well as improving education for all children. Training in child-centred teaching strategies can give teachers the skills and confidence to teach a diverse range of abilities and promote active learning to meet individual student needs. This is in line with commitments made by governments in the 1994 Salamanca Statement: those with special educational needs must have access to regular school, which should accommodate them with child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting these needs.

At present very few teachers in developing countries have access to this type of training, leaving the vast majority either unwilling to allow disabled children into their classrooms or feeling unable to support children with special needs. Traditionally, general teacher training and training for special education of disabled children have been separate, with ‘mainstream’ teachers receiving little, if any, training on working with disabled children .

Both pre and in-service training should focus on enabling teachers to assess and meet the needs of individual children, rather than on generic categories of disability. Training in inclusion should be targeted not only at teachers, but disability specialists, teacher educators, school administrators and other individuals in positions of governance in education. If this is not the case, teacher reform may be impeded rather than supported . Where teacher-training curricula are due for revision, the opportunity should be used to mainstream inclusion in the curriculum.

Teachers as role models
Teachers play a crucial role in modelling inclusive attitudes and establishing expectations in the classroom . As such, disabled teachers can be key players in combating discrimination and promoting positive identity in disabled children, and breaking down the prejudices of non-disabled children. More than this, they can provide a positive example for parents of disabled children, which can mean the difference between parents sending their child to school or keeping them at home because they see no benefit in an education. Consequently, recruitment needs to enable positive role models of disabled teachers. There are a series of challenges here which need to be addressed in the long term. A number of countries still do not have legislation that promotes the employment of disabled people . Furthermore, in many developing countries employers in the formal economy do not readily seek to hire disabled people’ .

Promoting an Enabling Environment for Inclusive Teaching
Where teachers are trained, their ability to promote inclusion in the classroom can be constrained through issues such as class size, lack of materials and other supports in accessible formats such as braille or large font, building accessibility and the curriculum, which may not reflect the existence of disabled people in society in positive ways.

Making Good on Current Commitments
Action is needed to meet legally binding commitments on governments under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which clearly expresses the right of each child to education (Article 28), and the responsibility of governments to ensure that disabled children receive good quality education (Article 23). The draft UN International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities also sets forth the rights of disabled people to education and the obligation on governments to ensure an inclusive education system (Article 24) .

Key recommendations
1.That the UK government support developing countries' long-term education plans, including provision for teacher salaries. In particular, the commitment made by the Chancellor to funding 10-year education plans in Africa should prioritise inclusive education. Criteria for support to these plans should require that teacher recruitment, training and professional development systems are oriented towards inclusion and learner-centred methods.

2.That the UK government develop, and provide the resources to implement, a detailed strategy for bringing disabled children in developing countries into education. This strategy must recognise

• the vital role that teachers play in bringing disabled children into education
• call for all pre- and in-service training of teachers in developing countries to concentrate on clear, accessible and participatory teaching focussed on the needs of each child
• show how the government will work with developing country governments and other donors to address conditions that prevent teachers from teaching in a way that includes all children
• be developed through a process of consultation, particularly with disabled people’s organisations and other civil society organisations working on this issue.