Disability results from the barriers facing people with
disabilities – attitudinal and physical barriers that lead
to exclusion from society. UK legislation and the UN
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
recognise that disability is about the way society responds.
This ‘social model’ of disability is central to DFID’s work. It
contrasts with the ‘medical model’ which sees people with
disabiities as having a problem that needs to be managed,
changed and/or adapted to circumstances (if possible).
2. Why is disability such an
important issue for education?
According to the EFA Global Monitoring Report 2010:
reaching the marginalized, children with disabilities remain
one of the main groups being widely excluded from quality
education. Disability is recognised as one of the least visible
yet most potent factors in educational marginalisation.
Children with disabilities have a right to education.
Since the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights was
released in 1948, there has been legislation on providing
education for all children (see Annex 1). The Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which entered into
force in 2008 and which was ratified by the UK in 2009, has
145 signatories (as at June 2010) including all PSA countries
except Afghanistan and Zimbabwe. Referring specifically to
education and the role of the international community, it
has profound implications for DFID and its work.
Article 24 of the Convention is on education (see Annex 2)
and includes the following:
State Parties shall ensure that:
Article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities places an obligation on development partners
to ensure that international cooperation, including
international development programmes, are inclusive of
and accessible to persons with disabilities. This presents
a fundamental change to all countries, including the UK,
that have ratified the treaty and are now bound by these
principles both domestically and internationally.
Achieving the Education For All targets and Millennium
Development Goals will be impossible without
improving access to and quality of education for
children with disabilities. The EFA Global Monitoring
Report 2007 estimates that the majority of children with
disabilities in Africa do not go to school at all, and of the
72 million primary aged children worldwide that are out of
school, one third have disabilities.
Poverty is both a cause of consequence of disability.
In 1999 the World Bank estimated that people with
disabilities may account for as many as one in five of
the world’s poorest people. A 2005 World Bank study
also tentatively concluded that “disability is associated
with long-run poverty in the sense that children with
disabilities are less likely to acquire the human capital that
will allow them to earn higher incomes”, but stressed the
need for more research in this area. People in developing
countries are more likely to be affected by disability
caused by communicable, maternal and perinatal diseases
and injuries than people in developed countrie s. These
disabilities are largely preventable. Furthermore conflict
often occurs in poorer countries which increases the
number of people with disabilities and invariably worsens
the delivery of basic services which is likely to impact
those with disabilities to a greater degree than others.
i. Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the
general education system on the basis of disability,
and that children with disabilities are not excluded
from free and compulsory primary education, or
from secondary education, on the basis of disability;
ii. Persons with disabilities can access an inclusive,
quality and free primary education and secondary
education on an equal basis with others in the
communities in which they live;
iii. Reasonable accommodation of the individual’s
requirements is provided;
iv. Persons with disabilities receive the support required,
within the general education system, to facilitate
their effective education;
vi. Effective individualized support measures are
provided in environments that maximize academic
and social development, consistent with the goal of
full inclusion.
2
Inclusion of children with disabilities specifically
targets:
• those children who are enrolled in
school but are excluded from learning
• those who are not enrolled in school
but could participate if schools were
more flexible in their responses
• relatively small groups of children with
severe disabilities who may require
some form of additional support.