Inclusive Education Initiative Newsletter #30 - June 2025

Transforming Education for Children with Disabilities

June 2025 | Issue #30

ERICC UCL Virtual Seminar: Supporting children’s mental health and mental wellbeing in and through education in contexts of conflict and protracted crises: Evidence Review
June 25, 2025, 12:00pm - 1:00pm (UTC)
INEE, IOE - UCL’s Institute of Education, and the ERICC consortium invite you to a virtual Seminar as part of a Seminar series which aims to promote dialogue and synergy between emerging findings from the Education Research in Conflict and Protracted Crisis (ERICC) programme and the work of scholars and practitioners in the field. The Seminar series will feature methodologies and emerging knowledge and offer space for inclusive cross-dialogue between academics, students, researchers and other experts in the field of education in conflict and protracted crises. 
Register here

Center for Global Development
What Next for Education in Sub-Saharan Africa? Safe and Inclusive Education for All
MAY 21, 2025

On the margins of the Education World Forum, the Center for Global Development (CGD) and the Global Partnership for Education (GPE) hosted a high-level panel discussion on how to make schools safer and more inclusive for children across sub-Saharan Africa.

Inclusive Futures
Inclusive Futures’ lunchtime learning webinar: finding and enrolling children with disabilities in schools
MAY 13, 2025
In the first of a series of three webinars focusing on Inclusive Futures’ recently launched education resources, Annie Hans from Humanity & Inclusion joined disability leader, Pramila Neupane, Ian Attfield and Caroline Pritchard from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to discuss how governments, donors, NGOs and organizations of people with disabilities can work together to find and enroll children with disabilities in schools. 

Inclusive Futures
Including children with disabilities at school
Inclusive Future's set of resources to ensure children with disabilities are included at every stage of education:

• Find and enrol children with disabilities in schools: six practical actions for finding and enrolling children with disabilities in schools. Read the report
• Prepare schools to welcome children with disabilities: Seven practical actions schools can take to prepare for welcoming children with disabilities into inclusive education. Read the report
• Centre children with disabilities in teaching: Five practical steps to equip teachers with the attitudes, knowledge and skills to teach local children with disabilities in the same classroom as their peers. Read the report

UNICEF
Children with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific
This report draws on data from 14 countries that used the UNICEF/Washington Group Child Functioning Module - a tool that focuses on children’s functional difficulties in daily life, rather than relying solely on medical diagnoses. This approach helps overcome stigma and underreporting, offering a more accurate picture of the proportion of children with disabilities and helps identify disparities in development outcomes and access to rights for children with disabilities and their peers.

Plan International, Secondary Education Working Group (SEWG), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
On the precipice of progress: National policy openings that increase forcibly displaced adolescent
and youth enrollment and retention in secondary education
This publication draws upon four case studies from the host-country contexts of Colombia, Iraq, Nigeria, and Rwanda. It contributes towards an emerging evidence base and informs an action agenda to increase forcibly displaced adolescent and youth enrollment and retention in national secondary education systems.

UNICEF
Accessible digital textbooks Project | Making classrooms inclusive for all
This research project focuses on embedding implementation research into the Accessible Digital Textbooks for All initiative, which aims to develop digital tools with accessibility features to enable all children, with and without disabilities, to learn in the same classroom. Read the reports for Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Jamaica, and Paraguay.

Able Child Africa Network
Amplifying the Voices of Children with Disabilities
This report presents the findings of a survey conducted to understand the priorities and experiences of children with disabilities in East and Southern Africa regarding their human rights. This survey aimed to provide valuable insights into the challenges and barriers these children face and their needs and aspirations for a better world. By highlighting their voices, the report seeks to inform policy and programme development to better support the realisation of the rights of children with disabilities across the continent.

European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education
Analysis Framework for Mapping Inclusive Education Policies
This document presents an analysis framework that has been developed to map inclusive education policies. Specifically, it has been developed to systematically record available documentary evidence on country policies for inclusive education in a highly structured way.

EDUCATION.ORG
How can we enable foundational learning for the 122 million girls who are out of school?
With population growth, the number of girls missing out on education will rise unless we take urgent action. The question is not just how to get millions of girls back in school but how to accelerate their learning. Accelerated Education Programmes offer a proven solution, achieving stronger learning outcomes in less time and at lower cost than formal education,

Five lessons for scaling targeted instruction from implementation research in Ghana
UNICEF
MAY 21, 2025
Since 2018, the Ghanaian Ministry of Education (MoE) has utilized a targeted instruction programme to strengthen foundational literacy and numeracy in Grades  two to six. The MoE has refined this programme over time resulting in the Differentiated Learning Plus (DL+) model, a remedial education programme that uses Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, groups learners by ability and utilizes play-based pedagogy in the classroom. 

Exclusion is holding children with disabilities back
UKFIET
APRIL 28, 2025
In celebration of Global Action Week for Education (28 April – 5 May 2025), a coalition of leading international NGOs and organisations of persons with disabilities has released a powerful joint statement calling for urgent action to end the exclusion of children with disabilities from education systems worldwide.

Moving from intention to action on disability inclusion in education
Global Partnership for Education
APRIL 17, 2025
As partners prepare to deliver on their commitments at the Global Disability Summit, the Global Partnership for Education and Sightsavers reflect on how international agencies and donors can take concrete action to accelerate progress towards inclusive education in a changing world.

Promises to action: A call to fulfill the right to learn for children with disabilities
Global Partnership for Education
APRIL 8, 2025
A call to action for global education and government leaders to make good on their commitments to education that includes every child and meets all learning needs,  by Jacqueline Jodl, Special Olympics International.

Educating children with disabilities: Addressing the unfinished agenda. Reflections a decade later.
World Bank Blogs
APRIL 1, 2025
While school attendance in low- and middle in-come countries for children with disabilities has increased, challenges within schools in relation to regular attendance, progression, attainment, and social inclusion remain. Transitions across different levels of the education system and into future employment also remain of concern, and the economic and social fallout of exclusion is high.

Inclusion into what? Education provision for students with disabilities and additional learning needs in Papua New Guinea
International Journal of Educational Development
MARCH 2025
This article is a case study that examines education provision for students with disabilities and additional learning needs (DALN) in a ‘model’ inclusive primary school in Papua New Guinea. It is based on classroom observation and semi-structured interviews with selected teachers. It analyses the pedagogical practices of the teachers, their inclusivity, and the variables shaping them.

We want to hear from you!

Please share your disability-inclusive education activities, success stories, upcoming events, and other exciting resources. Please connect to our website: https://www.inclusive-education-initiative.org/community or send to iei@worldbank.org 

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