Disabilities
Children with disabilities are often not afforded the same rights of access to education as other children.
Barrier to education: disabilities
Children with disabilities have the same right to education as children who do not have disabilities. However, in practice, children with disabilities are very often excluded from learning opportunities. The reasons include:
- Lack of accessible school buildings
- Limited number of teachers trained to teach in inclusive settings
- Inflexible and inaccessible curricula, learning materials and examination systems
- Social stigmas that exclude children with disabilities from interaction with wider society
- Insufficient data on children with disabilities that excludes them from demographic studies
Poverty, gender and disability also become a potent mix of barriers that conspire to keep children with disabilities from getting an education.
To include children with disabilities, education systems will be required to adopt social reforms that change attitudes and support the practice of inclusive education. In addition, education sector reforms must alter curricula, materials and examination processes to include children disabilities and provide for non-formal educational opportunities.
More and better data will also have to be collected on children with disabilities.