Resources search

The international symposium "Ensuring the right to quality inclusive education for persons with disabilities: From commitment to action", co-organized by UNESCO, the Leonard Cheshire, and the Ministry of Education of Portugal brought together a wide range of stakeholders across the globe to discuss progress, successes achieved and challenges to ensure full participation and access to quality learning opportunities for all learners.

The symposium aims were to:

• review persisting, as well as new challenges, due to the COVID-19 pandemic that are hindering the fulfilment of the right to inclusive education for learners with disabilities.
• facilitate the exchange of experiences on factors influencing successful inclusive policies and practices for learners with disabilities and strengthen dialogue and cooperation amongst stakeholders at policy and practice levels.
• explore how the inclusion of learners with disabilities in inclusive settings can be more effectively addressed by governments with regards to the commitments of Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the CRPD General Comment 4 on article 24, and Sustainable Development 4 SDG 4, to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

The programme included:

Opening session - Accelerating efforts towards inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 1 - From legislation to inclusive practices: Re-designing policy frameworks, funding and monitoring arrangements across sectors for inclusive education for learners with disabilities. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

Session 2 - Revisiting the teaching and learning process to ensure access and participation of learners with disabilities.

Session 3 - Moving towards inclusive and safe learning environments, including by addressing violence and bullying against learners with disabilities.
 

Closing session - Rebuilding a Stronger Global Disability Inclusive Education System post COVID-19. (Video recording: English - French - Spanish)

The PEER on-line tool has been designed to support the monitoring of national education laws and policies. It provides systematic, comprehensive information on laws and policies for every country in the world and is meant to support policy dialogue and peer learning.

The first set of country profiles cover inclusion and education, the theme of the 2020 GEM Report

The past twenty years in India have seen significant legal and political commitments towards universalization of education and the right to education. This report documents the considerable effort undertaken in the country to protect the right to education of children with disabilities (CWD) and outlines what remains to be done to achieve its full realization. 

The report is based on extensive research of national and international literature and attempts to provide comprehensive information on the current status of education of CWDs, evidence of achievements and continuing concerns. It extensively draws upon a series of thematic research studies between 2017 and 2018. 

The report has taken a participatory approach with contributions, in the form of case studies, from specialists and those working directly in the field. 

“The 2019 GEM Report continues its assessment of progress towards Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) on education and its ten targets, as well as other related education targets in the SDG agenda.

Its main focus is on the theme of migration and displacement. It presents evidence on the implications of different types of migration and displacement for education systems but also the impact that reforming education curricula and approaches to pedagogy and teacher preparation can have on addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by migration and displacement. It gives voice to experiences in host and home communities.

With the help of case studies, it illustrates approaches which work and could be scaled up. In this way, it aims to be a tool for practitioners. It will make the case for investing in education of good quality in rural areas suffering from depopulation and in slum areas suffering from large population inflows; in countries with high rates of emigration and those with high rates of immigration; in short-term refugee emergencies and in protracted crises. Its analysis, conclusions and recommendations advance the aims of SDG 4 and its call to leave no one behind.”

This guide is intended to support countries in embedding inclusion and equity in educational policy. It supports Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on education calls for inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong learning opportunities for all by 2030. The guide is intended for use primarily by key government education policy-makers working with key stakeholders. The guide provides an assessment framework that can serve to: review how well equity and inclusion currently figure in existing policies; decide which actions are needed to improve policies and their implementation towards equitable and inclusive education systems; and monitor progress. The guide includes evidence that informs the assessment framework, examples of initiatives that are contributing to more inclusive and equitable education systems in different parts of the world, and recommendations for further reading. 

UNESCO together with UNICEF, the World Bank, UNFPA, UNDP, UN Women and UNHCR organized the World Education Forum 2015 in Incheon, Republic of Korea, from 19 – 22 May 2015, hosted by the Republic of Korea. Over 1,600 participants from 160 countries, including over 120 Ministers, heads and members of delegations, heads of agencies and officials of multilateral and bilateral organizations, and representatives of civil society, the teaching profession, youth and the private sector, adopted the Incheon Declaration for Education 2030, which sets out a new vision for education for the next fifteen years.

Towards 2030: a new vision for education

Our vision is to transform lives through education, recognizing the important role of education as a main driver of development and in achieving the other proposed SDGs. We commit with a sense of urgency to a single, renewed education agenda that is holistic, ambitious and aspirational, leaving no one behind. This new vision is fully captured by the proposed SDG 4 “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” and its corresponding targets. It is transformative and universal, attends to the ‘unfinished business’ of the EFA agenda and the education-related MDGs, and addresses global and national education challenges. It is inspired by a humanistic vision of education and development based on human rights and dignity; social justice; inclusion; protection; cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity; and shared responsibility and accountability. We reaffirm that education is a public good, a fundamental human right and a basis for guaranteeing the realization of other rights. It is essential for peace, tolerance, human fulfilment and sustainable development. We recognize education as key to achieving full employment and poverty eradication. We will focus our efforts on access, equity and inclusion, quality and learning outcomes, within a lifelong learning approach.

Action and commitments required to implement the agenda are presented.

This report aims "to provide governments, civil society, industry, academia and other groups with an insight into the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) by persons with disabilities to access information and knowledge around the world; To present an overview and critical assessment of existing information policies and strategies as well as challenges and advantages in using ICTs to access information and knowledge for persons with disabilities; To identify practices at local, national and global levels on effective application of ICTs by persons with disabilities to access information and knowledge; To foster future frameworks on the use of ICTs to access information and knowledge of persons with disabilities (PWD); and Based on the best available information and analysis, to make recommendations for strategy formulation, action-oriented initiatives and new synergies at national, regional and international levels"

Inclusive education is a process that involves the transformation of schools and other centres of learning to cater for all children – including boys and girls, students from ethnic and linguistic minorities, rural populations, those affected by HIV and AIDS, and those with disabilities and diffi culties in learning and to provide learning opportunities for all youth and adults as well. Its aim is to eliminate exclusion that is a consequence of negative attitudes and a lack of response to diversity in race, economic status, social class, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation and ability. Education takes place in many contexts, both formal and non-formal, and within families and the wider community. Consequently, inclusive education is not a marginal issue but is central to the achievement of high quality education for all learners and the development of more inclusive societies. Inclusive education is essential to achieve social equity and is a constituent element of lifelong learning.

These guidelines were discussed in a side event at the International Conference on Education in Geneva, Nov 2008 and recommendations from that meeting have been built into this fi nal version. We hope that they will serve as a resource for policymakers, teachers and learners, community leaders and members of civil society in their efforts to promote more effective strategies for reaching the EFA goals.

"This paper is intended to systematize how excluded children are planned for in education. It begins with a brief introduction, which provides a historical perspective on the origins of inclusion and describes the shift from integration towards inclusion. It is then divided into three main parts.
The first provides a theoretical framework. It defines inclusion, explains how it is founded in a human rights approach and how it relates to factors such as quality and cost-effectiveness.
The second part looks at more practical changes at the school level. It outlines the key elements in the shift towards inclusion with a particular focus on the key players including teachers, parents and educational policymakers as well as curricula.
The third part brings together the first two sections by providing tools for policymakers and educational planners for hands-on analysis of education plans."