Inclusive school enrollment practices

Building an inclusive legislative framework

Education is a human right recognized by several legally binding and non-binding international treaties and documents (e.g., the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); the 1960 UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education (CADE)) (for more information on the Right to Education, please consult the forthcoming IIEP guidelines on Planning to fulfill the Right to Education). Inclusive education is also reaffirmed in the international community agenda, for example, in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 (target 4.5 and means of implementation 4a) and the Education for All (EFA) goal 2: “Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly girls, children in difficult circumstances and those belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to and complete, free and compulsory primary education of good quality”.

As the primary duty bearers of the right to education (RTE), countries have the responsibility to translate these international conventions into national legislation (Right to Education Initiative, n.d.) as the first step toward inclusive education. The policy and legislative framework must contain provisions promoting non-discrimination, accessibility, zero-reject, and reasonable accommodations, which are the pillars of an inclusive society (Hunt, 2020).

The RTE must be stated in detailed and explicit terms, inscribed in a “comprehensive and coordinated legislative and policy framework for inclusive education”, and be supported by policies and strategies for implementation (Hunt, 2020: 12; Lansdown, 2014). For the RTE to be effective, vulnerable groups must be aware of and able to exercise their rights (Wodon, 2016).

Data-supported planning

Data are necessary to highlight gaps in education opportunities between groups of students and inform policy design and implementation (UNESCO, 2020). They are key to decisions related to, for example, school grants allocation, provision of student learning supports and staff, and budget for implementation (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) and Diplomatic Academy, 2019).

Yet, many countries do not have even basic data, even less so on out-of-school children, reasons for non-participation, and environmental factors, which makes it hard to have an idea of the extent of exclusion from education (Hayes et al., 2017; Mizunoya, 2018; UNESCO, 2020). Also, few national plans have inclusion-related indicators. In this regard, Somalia’s efforts are commendable: national plans include enrolment indicators disaggregated by sex, disability, special education needs, and location, which helps track progress towards inclusion and equity (IBE-UNESCO et al., 2018).

Measuring inclusion needs to start with “clearly stated definitions of inclusion and equity” (UNESCO, 2017: 21), bearing in mind that this may have implications for policy design and international comparisons (Brussino, 2020). For example, what is meant by “special education needs”? It must also rely on robust data collection systems and methods to identify the gaps in inclusion and their causes (UNESCO, 2009). When it comes to children with disabilities (CWD), data collection problems may be encountered because of parents’ under-reporting and the lack of screening procedures (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) and Diplomatic Academy, 2019). Tools are being developed to facilitate the cross-country comparisons of disability statistics. For example, UNICEF and the Washington Group released questionnaires to assess functional difficulties in children aged 2-17 (Mizunoya, 2018).

Regardless of the minority groups to be reached, the use of household surveys and the involvement of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and communities in data collection should be encouraged (UNESCO, 2009). For instance, data for language mapping can be collected through censuses. But where one or more non-dominant languages are spoken, local NGOs and communities can help gather information at the school or family level to determine the level of proficiency in each language (Benson, 2016).

Education Management Information Systems (EMIS) are key in monitoring an education system’s inclusiveness, provided that they enable a sufficient level of data disaggregation (Wodon, 2016). EMIS should gather data on children and their characteristics, environmental factors (e.g., school accessibility), and human resources available at the school level (Hunt, 2020). In this respect, consultations and discussions may be necessary, for instance, on the strategy to identify CWD. Although labeling students with disabilities may be needed to allocate additional funding or classroom support, it can also be associated with lower well-being outcomes such as stigmatization (Hayes et al., 2017). Alternatively, children can be assessed in several areas related to their functioning, which would help identify the needs of each child, irrespective of whether they have a disability or not. The results of these assessments could be accompanied by further information on the type of disability (Hunt, 2020). The focus will thus be on the child’s strengths and needs rather than her diagnosis (Hayes et al., 2017).

Removing economic barriers to school enrolment demand

School enrolment is often hindered by barriers related to the direct and opportunity costs of schooling (World Bank, 2005). A wide variety of programs have been implemented to increase enrolment by removing economic barriers on the demand side of education provision. A widely implemented one is the abolition of school fees to guarantee universal access to education. Others include conditional cash transfers, which have proven efficient in improving enrolment (see, for example, Filmer and Schady, 2009). Social protection programs and cash transfers conditional on attendance and the use of health services have consistently been beneficial to enrolment, dropout, and completion in Latin America (UNESCO, 2020). School meals are another powerful intervention that can be implemented relatively easily by governments, with positive effects on school enrolment and retention, particularly among girls and in food-insecure areas (Bedasso, 2022; Crawfurd, Hares, and Sandefur, 2022) (please consult Direct cost of schooling for more information on similar interventions). More targeted economic incentives can be implemented (e.g., cash transfers conditional on delayed girls’ marriage), but given the differences in vulnerable groups’ characteristics, it is not easy to pinpoint the ones that would apply to all (Wodon, 2016).

Overall, when looking at the full range of policies that have been implemented, many have mixed results or have not been evaluated at scale. Some had also shown very promising outcomes in their experimental phase but failed when scaled-up because they were very sensitive to small alterations in their implementation, ministries did not have the capacities for such an exercise, or political economy factors came into play (Crawfurd, Hares, and Sandefur, 2022). However, lessons learned from these experiences point to the importance of:

• Carefully considering the cost-effectiveness of the interventions considered (Hunt, 2020);
• an appropriate targeting (IBE-UNESCO, CONFINTED, and BIE, 2008);
• a holistic approach to inclusion (i.e., avoid standalone strategies) (see Promising policy options for school fee abolition for an example) (UNESCO, 2010)
• consultations with vulnerable groups to identify and remove barriers (Lansdown, 2014).

Providing flexible arrangements at school

According to the Abidjan Principles, States must provide reasonable accommodations to cater to individuals’ different capabilities (The Abidjan Principles, 2019). For schools, this implies some flexibility to make the necessary arrangements to meet many different needs. Standardization and non-adaptability, on the other hand, can lead to direct discrimination through school admission offer or indirect discrimination through, for example, the lack of accessible infrastructure for CWD (Varghese, 2022).

Necessary arrangements in school include the removal of physical barriers to education and the provision of adequate school amenities, for example, single-sex sanitation or ramps (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) and Diplomatic Academy, 2019; Varghese, 2022) (see School infrastructure for more information).

Additionally, teacher training, with preferably hands-on experience during pre-service training, should provide teachers with the necessary skills to accommodate students’ diverse needs. In Mongolia, specialized teacher training to welcome CWD helped improve the latter’s enrolment in preschools and primary schools (Wodon, 2016). Some OECD countries, like Denmark, have mandatory courses on special education needs (Brussino, 2020). Teaching strategies should be flexible enough to allow any adjustment necessary and individualized teaching (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) and Diplomatic Academy, 2019). In this respect, tools such as Individualized education plans (IEPs), which gather student information and teacher strategies to meet the specific needs reported, can be used (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (Australia) and Diplomatic Academy, 2019). Human resources such as specialized support staff and teaching assistants are also key to further supporting students with special education needs (Brussino, 2020). School leadership plays an important role in encouraging the sharing of inclusive and innovative teaching practices (Brussino, 2020).