Guidance Note
Published on: November 1, 2021 on Dutch Coalition on Disability and Development (DCDD)
Education is an important tool for children’s development within society. Unfortunately, children with disabilities are often excluded from education. Half of the estimated 65 million primary and lower secondary-school age children with disabilities in low-income countries are not in school. This needs to change if we want to achieve SDG 4: “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”.
Inclusion does not happen automatically. It requires new ways of looking at disability and inclusive education, as well as active participation of all the different stakeholders. Projects and programmes need to be adjusted, the capacity of staff that is involved in the educational process needs to be strengthened and barriers need to be removed.
Luckily, many tools and resources already exist. It’s a matter of making the right connections and taking action! To make it easier to take the right steps, DCDD has developed a new Quick Guide: Towards Disability Inclusive Education. This guide gives you more information on what inclusive education is, what steps you can take and what tools and resources you can use to move towards more inclusive education programmes.
We hope that this guide helps programme managers, proposal developers and field coordinators who are involved in the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of primary education programmes to find the information and tools they need. Feel free to use this guide and share it within your own network! Tips and other tools that are not included in the guide yet are welcome to be shared with us. You may contact us at dcdd@dcdd.nl. When relevant, we will share them on our resources page.