Educating all the children

A UNESCO inclusive education project in Asia and the Pacific seeks to give education for all its full meaning. Providing equal opportunities for children with disabilities, the project is motivating parents and pupils alike.

Lek is 15 and lives in Phrae Province in northern Thailand. He had never been to school and never played with his peers. He suffers from Down Syndrome and his parents hardly let him outside the house because they were ashamed of him.

Since the Salamanca Conference in 1994, UNESCO has been promoting the concept of inclusive education - a drive to remove all barriers to learning, with a particular focus on children with disabilities. This concept promotes the inclusion of all children into regular schools and the adaptation of schools to their needs. UNESCO's role is building countries' capacity to manage inclusive education through training programmes for administrators, principals, physiotherapists and teachers.

In 1999, UNESCO Bangkok launched such an initiative in China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Viet Nam. "In Asia and the Pacific, disabled children are often stigmatized and kept out of school," says Ane Fernandez of UNESCO Bangkok.

Accommodating handicapped children in regular schools is no easy matter. School premises have to be made accessible to all, by removing physical obstacles and arranging suitable transport. As one teacher explained: the socialization of children with disabilities is just a first step before school can start. For them, this means being able to tie their shoelaces or shirt buttons, being able to play with others or going to the toilet on their own."

Building on over seven years of experience in integrating children with disabilities into mainstream schooling, the Lao People's Democratic Republic is way ahead in this respect. Today, seventy-eight schools in twelve of the country's eighteen provinces use inclusive approaches. Schooling has opened up new opportunities for many of these children. "I want to continue studying and go to secondary school and become a teacher for blind children," says a pupil in a Vientiane District primary school.

Responding to diversity has posed new challenges for teachers already having to cope with overcrowded classes and scarce learning materials. But, even with the extra work of adopting new teaching styles, they are finding time to develop their own learning materials. Teachers in one primary school in Vientiane made visual aids out of discarded materials and, out of wood and cardboard, a floor plan of the school to help blind pupils get around.

The project has also changed the lives of the families, especially the poor. "Since Lek started school, his mother does not have to worry all the time and stay home," his teacher says. "Now she feels less stressed and has time to sell fish in the market and improve the whole family's well-being."

One of the pluses is that all pupils benefit from the inclusive approach. The children work together, help each other and learn to accept difference. "Some children in Thailand's Phrae province admitted that they used to be 'scared of people with disabilities', but now they realize their prejudice." adds Fernandez.

School attendance has improved too and, according to Laotian parents, teachers are more motivated because of the extra training, and parent-teacher associations are now willing to pay for extra classes for pupils with learning difficulties.

Barriers nevertheless persist. The challenge for the future is to develop skills to identify the nature of these barriers and ways of addressing them 

Contact: A. Fernandez,
UNESCO Bangkok

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