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Towards Inclusive Education - The impact of disability on school attendance in developing countries

Suguru Mizunoya
Sophie Mitra
IzumiYamasaki
May 2016

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The paper aims to reduce the global knowledge gap pertaining to the impact of disability on school attendance, using cross-nationally comparable and nationally representative data from 18 surveys in 15 countries that are selected among 2,500 surveys and censuses. These selected surveys administered the Washington Group Short Set (WGSS) of disability-screening questions, covering five functional domains of seeing, hearing, mobility, self-care, and remembering, and collected information on educational status. The paper finds that (i) the average disability gap in school attendance stands at 30% in primary and secondary schools in 15 countries; (ii) more than 85% of disabled primary-age children who are out of school have never attended school; (iii) the average marginal effect of disability on primary and secondary school attendance is negative and significant (-30%), and (iv) countries that have reached close to universal primary education report high ratios of disabled to non-disabled out-of-school children and (v) disabled children confront the same difficulties in participating in education, regardless of their individual and socio-economic characteristics.

How high is infant mortality in Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS?

ALESHINA, Nadezhda
REDMOND, Gerry
November 2003

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Official statistics seem to suggest that in post-communist Europe infant mortality rates have significantly decreased through the 1990s. As infant mortality rate is a key indicator of the Millennium Development Goals, reliable measurement is crucial to assess progress. This paper argues that official counts may understate the gravity of the problem in at least 15 countries in the region. This may be due to unclear definitions of 'live birth' and 'stillbirth', misreporting of infant deaths, nonregistration of births or deaths. The paper also discusses the uncertainties associated with survey based estimates, and call for further work to be done to improve collection of data and effectiveness of surveys

Children in Bulgaria : growing impoverishment and unequal opportunities

GANTCHEVA, Roumania
KOLEV, Alexandre
January 2001

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This paper investigates the changes that have occurred over the last decade in three dimensions of child welfare recognised as fundamental child rights - economic well-being, health and education. Then it concentrates on particularly vulnerable groups of children - those born of teenage and single mothers and those living in institutions. The data show that the human cost of economic transition has been high and children have been among the most vulnerable groups of the society

The two faces of education in ethnic conflict : towards a peacebuilding education for children

BUSH, Kenneth
SALTARELLI, Diana
Ed
2000

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This document challenges a widely-held assumption that education is inevitably a force for good. While stressing the many stabilising aspects of good quality education, editors Kenneth Bush and Diana Saltarelli show how education can be manipulated to drive a wedge between people, rather than drawing them closer together. This Innocenti Insight outlines the negative and positive faces of education in situations of tension or violence, including the denial of education as a weapon of war (negative) and the cultivation of inclusive citizenship (positive). It emphasises the need for peacebuilding education. The publication is about children of all ages, but it also discusses the creation of ethnic identity from an early age (section 1), and gives examples of the destruction of primary schools as a weapon of war (p.11)

Child friendly cities initiative

UNITED NATIONS CHILDREN'S FUND (UNICEF)

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This website is a knowledge base for the global Child Friendly Cities (CFC) Initiative. It contains the CFC Database, which collects information on the role played by local governance systems in the areas of child rights, child participation and services for children; a CFC toolkit, which offers a definition of a CFC, examples of good practice and successful methods from around the world, a framework for action and key references

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