Inclusive Education Initiative Newsletter #21, October 2022

Dear IEI Members,

We hope you are doing well. We are happy to learn about all of the things going on to increase disability-inclusive education around the world. In this issue we are highlighting all the many reports, passed event recordings, and information about upcoming events that have been shared with us.
 
As a Community of Practice, we have over 3,300 members now and excited that you are a part of this group. Please keep sharing resources and engaging in discussions as this community wouldn't exist without you. We are so grateful for our continued collaboration in achieving the goal of ensuring all children have access to quality inclusive education.
 
Please reach out to us if you have a blog post or anything else you would like featured on the IEI website—we are happy to feature your work on disability-inclusive education.  You can email us at iei@worldbank.org or join our LinkedIn Group and post questions directly there.

All the best,
The Inclusive Education Initiative Team

For deaf children, learning to communicate is their first and most immediate challenge, and they need support with this from the start in order to thrive. The first three years of a child’s life are the most important for developing language, whether spoken or signed. However, for deaf children in low income communities, barriers such as late diagnosis, limited access to hearing technology and pervasive stigma, means they are very unlikely to receive the support they need. This has escalating consequences. Limited language skills impact a young child’s ability to build relationships, share experiences and be ready for school.

However, the work we have supported over the last twenty years demonstrates there are approaches that help deaf children and their families. Our expert panel will share perspectives and approaches from Kenya, Ghana, India and Bangladesh which help develop a young deaf child’s language and communication skills. Delegates will have the opportunity to ask questions of our speakers as well as spend time sharing and learning from each other in break-out rooms.
 

Established in 1956, CIES is the largest and oldest comparative and international education society in the world. It attracts a diverse audience in working towards its mission "to contribute to an understanding of education through encouragement and promotion of comparative education and related areas of inquiry and activity.” Its more than 3,300 individual members — researchers, analysts, practitioners, and students — represent over 1,000 universities, research institutes, government departments, non-governmental organizations, and multilateral agencies across the globe.

Global Research on Developmental Disabilities Collaborators (GRDDC)
Global and Regional Prevalence of Disabilities among Children and Adolescents: Analysis of Findings From Global Health Databases
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) require population-based data on children with disabilities to inform global policies and intervention programs. Researchers set out to compare the prevalence estimates of disabilities among children and adolescents younger than 20 years as reported by the world's leading organizations for global health statistics. Find out more in this recent report

Humanity & Inclusion 
The Lives Behind the Data 
Children with disabilities in education across Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory. Data show that children and youth with disabilities are disproportionately excluded from education. 50% of them do not go to school, in low and middle-income countries.  In countries affected by conflicts, humanitarian disasters, socio economic crises, and political instability, children’s’ lived experiences of exclusion from education are compounded. But behind these data there are real people, with their unique life experiences that give meaning to data and purpose to actions. This new factsheet presents the stories of 6 children living in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Education Cannot Wait
We Have Promises to Keep and Miles to Go Before We Sleep

In 2021, ECW expanded its impact as the United Nations global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises. It continued its rapid response to a global pandemic while further strengthening its work at the global, national and local levels with strategic partners to provide children and youth in armed conflicts, forced displacement, climate change-induced disasters and protracted crises with the safety, hope and opportunity of an education.

Working with our broad range of partners, ECW had active grants in 32 crisis-affected countries in 2021. This report captures the results delivered through these investments to support inclusive and equitable quality education for the millions of girls and boys caught in humanitarian crises.

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION POLICY ACADEMY 
 The Inclusive Education Thematic Group (IETG) of the World Bank Education Global Practice recently launched the Inclusive Education Policy Academy (IEPA) summer course titled, "Operationalizing Disability Inclusion in Education Operations." The course is designed to support World Bank staff in operationalizing the four criteria of disability inclusive education, as outlined in the Disability Inclusion in Education Guidance Note, and as part of the wider institutional commitments to make all World Bank education projects disability inclusive by 2025. Drawing on lessons learned from previous IEPAs, IETG is now planning future IEPA cohorts. IETG is working closely with World Bank staff and country representatives to design relevant, hands-on, and quality professional learning courses that package the latest cutting-edge research and evidence to inform inclusive education policy design and implementation.
 
We need more data on children with disabilities to ensure no one is left behind
Stuart Cameron, GPE
14 September 2022
 
Literacy Day 2022: Give every child a chance to realize their full potential through education
Pralhad Gairapipli, Humanity & Inclusion
8 September 2022
 
Stopping the Silence
Deaf Child Worldwide
18 July 2022

Disability, Inclusion and the Sustainable Development Goals
A special journal issue on disability and the SDG's is in the works and they want your submissions! A growing body of evidence suggests that people with disabilities experience worse outcomes in almost every dimension of social and economic wellbeing. In the spirit of “No one left behind” some disability indicators were included in the SDGs and recommendations were made to disaggregate personal and household indicators by disability to monitor these gaps. However, there are various aspects of life that affect the well-being of people with disabilities – such as the extra costs associated with disability, barriers to participation, and the stigma that can have damaging social and psychological impacts – that are not captured by the SDGs, or only indirectly so. Moreover, the collection of disability disaggregated data, while growing, is still not available in many countries for many of the SDGs.

This research topic should address how the SDGs, both theoretically and in practice, are able to measure and monitor the impact of disability on people’s social and economic well-being. To what extent have the SDGs been used to monitor people with disabilities? How have the SDGs helped us in “leaving no one behind”? What sorts of indicators are needed to supplement the SDGs to capture the full impact of disability on people’s lives and inform policies that can promote inclusion?