Inclusive Education Initiative Newsletter #27

Dear IEI Members,

We hope you are doing well. We want to start this July issue with a big THANK YOU! We just hit an incredible milestone, the IEI  LinkedIn Community of Practice recently surpassed 50,000 members.

Thank you so much for being with us, for your continuous participation and contributions, and for your passion for achieving the goal of ensuring all children have access to quality, inclusive education. This community would not exist without you! 

Before heading off for the holidays we want to share some recent blogs, papers and events on disability-inclusive education.

In continuing to make our website your go-to website on various aspects of disability-inclusive education, we welcome your feedback. As we work to increase the amount of content on our repository, we kindly ask that you continue sending us documents so that others can learn from your work. Please reach out to us if you have a blog post or anything else you would like featured on the 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.

We wish you a great summer
The Inclusive Education Initiative Team

GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT TEAM
Learners with disabilities and technology: advocacy brief
The Global Education Monitoring Report has developed an advocacy brief on learners with disability and technology based on the findings of the 2023 GEM Report Technology in education: A tool on whose terms? This advocacy brief was developed with the support of different organizations working on disability and has two objectives. On one hand, it aims to highlight some of the main findings of the 2023 GEM Report for learners with disabilities; on the other, it aims to provide recommendations for policy-makers to ensure that the use of technology in education keeps learners with disability and teachers at the center.

All means all: Taking stock of inclusive teaching practices across classrooms in eight countries
Education For Global Development, World Bank Blogs
MAY 31, 2024
Inclusive teaching represents a global aspiration amongst educators and policymakers, as reflected in Sustainable Development Goal 4. As result of this stronger emphasis on teaching for all students, there has been an increase in awareness of inclusive teaching practices globally. But there is still room to improve our understanding of how these practices can best be identified and measured in the classroom.

How to Finance Disability Inclusion in Education to Transform Systems and Leave No One Behind
Global Partnership For Education
MAY 23, 2024
Many countries are still under the perception that inclusive education is unaffordable, but in fact the costs are reasonable, and a significant portion of expenditure benefits all learners. This blog presents reflections and recommendations to enable financing of inclusive education in lower-income countries.

Bridging Educational Gaps through Inclusive Innovation
UNESCO
MAY 14, 2024
A joint exhibition by UNESCO and UNESCAP at the 80th Session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific  highlighted the crucial role of equity and inclusion in education. Under the theme, ‘Leveraging digital innovation for sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific’, the booth showcased innovative solutions aimed at addressing the identified needs of disadvantaged and marginalized learners in the region. 

A dream school for inclusive education in Zimbabwe: The power of assistive devices.
Global Partnership for Education
APRIL 24, 2024
In Zimbabwe, a program funded by GPE and partners is enhancing educational opportunities and results for children with disabilities thanks to assistive technologies. Access to assistive devices helps maintain or improve an individual's functioning related to cognition, communication, hearing, mobility, self-care, and vision, thus enabling their health, well-being, inclusion, and participation.

How to meaningfully measure learning outcomes of learners with disabilities
Global Partnership for Education
MARCH 26, 2024
Sustainable development goal 4 of providing learners with inclusive and equitable quality education requires us to measure how learners are progressing towards learning. UNICEF further advances that governments must introduce inclusive testing and assessment to achieve truly inclusive education. Coupling inclusive learning assessments with inclusive classroom instruction has the potential to improve the quality of education not just for learners with disabilities, but for all learners.

Inclusive and assistive technologies: a life-changer for learners with disabilities
World Education Blog
MARCH 25, 2024
Thirty years ago, the Statement at the World Conference on Special Needs in Education in Salamanca, made a strong and clear case for inclusive education by arguing that: ‘[Those] with special educational needs must have access to regular schools’, albeit with the proviso ‘unless there are compelling reasons for doing otherwise’. This blog looks at the undeniable step forward thanks to technology, an issue that was widely covered in the 2023 GEM Report and in a new advocacy brief out today.

What does recent evidence from data and policies say about inclusion in education?
World Education Blog
MARCH 14, 2024
Four years ago, the 2020 GEM Report, All means all, focused on inclusion, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was amplifying many of the factors that lead to exclusion in education. This blog looks at some recent quantitative and qualitative trends since our major publication on the issue.

The “how to” of inclusive policy design
Education For Global Development World Bank Blogs
MARCH 14, 2024
Why are more children with disabilities being left out despite rising global interest in building more inclusive education systems? The capacity to formulate and implement sound inclusive education policy remains a major constraint to reaching Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Building inclusive education systems should be a starting point, not an afterthought.