How International Instruments and Declarations have shaped Inclusive Education

Recently, UNESCO released its GEM Report 2020 titled Inclusion and Education: All means All. The report covers a large set of information related to the condition of Education across the globe, including domains like laws and policies, governance and finance, curricula, textbooks, schools, teachers, adult education and many more.

Here, we focus on the part where the report talks about multiple international instruments and declarations that have given shape to the idea of inclusive education and how local governments implement their policies based on the associated frameworks.

What is Inclusive Education?

All across the globe, societies are divided into multiple classes. There are people from the privileged sections and others from the underprivileged ones. However, there lies a very prominent section that we miss many times while classifying, and it is the physically disabled one. In very simple terms, the idea of giving a customised environment to all these groups in order to enhance their personality, talent and creativity through structured education without any discrimination on the basis of race, sex, colour, language, religion, economic condition and physical abilities can be termed as Inclusive Education.

Evolution of International Instruments and Declarations

• 1960: UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education

• Discrimination is any distinction, exclusion, limitation or preference based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political, nationality, economic condition that results in unequal treatment of individuals in education.

• Accepted single sex schools and schools of religious or linguistic communities do not constitute discrimination

• 1989: UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

• Two articles related to the Right to Education

• Separate article referring to education for children with disabilities (Art 23)

• 1990: World Declaration on Education for All ( Jomtien, Thailand)

• Distinguished between disabled persons and the under-served 

• Under-served groups comprise the poor, working children, remote populations, indigenous people, minorities, refugees, and people under occupation

• 1994: World Conference (Salamanca, Spain): The Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education (Salamanca Declaration):

• Schools should accommodate all children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, or emotional needs. Linguistic or other conditions. 

• Framework, p.6: Children and Youth with special needs should be included in educational arrangements made for the majority of children.

• Framework, p.17: The school that would be attended if the child did not have a disability.

• Statement, p. ix: Urged the state to adopt inclusive education as a matter of law or policy.

• Preface, p. iii: include everybody, celebrate differences, support learning, and respond to individual needs.

• 2000: World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal):

• Acknowledged that Inclusive education emerged in response to a growing consensus that all children have the right to a common education in their locality, regardless of their background, attainment or disability.

• 2006: UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) :

• Right to Inclusive Education

• State Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all levels (Art 24)

• A country that ratified the convention must submit a report within two years and every four years thereafter. Committees on the Rights of Persons with disabilities review the reports and make recommendations to countries. (Art 33 & 34)

Challenges Faced in Implementing Inclusivity 

Even after these International institutions and declarations come into play, the authorities at the local level do not implement them efficiently. For instance, Article 16 of the legally binding 2018 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights declares the Rights of the PwDs in Africa to have inclusive quality education. However, to bring the protocol into force, at least 15 of the 55 African Union countries need to ratify it. Only six ratified shows the kind of negligence that has been put on the ground level.

General Comment No.4

Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, clarified Art 24 of the UN CRPD,2016. It clarified the meaning of the right to inclusive education and defined it thoroughly. It is counted as the de facto global development policy on inclusive education.

Way Forward

We have seen how much the International Forum is trying to bring inclusivity into implementation. Evolving from non-binding frameworks to be followed with misinterpretation of the declarations to binding legal frameworks to be implemented by the signatories. It’s time for the Local Authorities to think further about how to bring the concept to practicality and endeavour to bring together the distinct groups on the same platform for their overall development.

Reference: UNESCO GEM Report 2020: Inclusion and Education