Comments on: 3.2 Our three priorities

By: Gillian Price

Gillian Price — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:35:24 +0000

Why no focus on disability? Barriers preventing disabled children from going to school include inaccessible curricula, difficulties in actually accessing the school and teachers who are not trained to deal with special needs. What strategies will Dfid be putting into place to ensure training of teachers in disability awareness and ways of delivering the curriculum?
One of the major barriers to producing credible plans to change this situation and enable disabled childrn to access a quality education is the lack of data available to show how many disabled children there are in a country.
UNESCO states that there is a need for a consensus on definitions and statitstical frameworks related to disability as well as the right tools for collecting the data. They calaim that in order to introudce international data collection there needs to be consensus among countries on concepts, statistical frameworks and data collection tools related to disability. This UNESCO claims is outside their mandate. Some of Dfid money could be used to work with other agencies (eg WHO) to set up internationally recognised tools in order to establish international monitoring and delivery of education.

By: marilyn leask

marilyn leask — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:13:42 +0000

I agree with Faye about including disabled children in any DFID plans – also again, what about focusing on teacher training? Focusing on existing teachers is equivalent to shutting the gate after the horse has bolted.

By: Faye

Faye — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 15:41:35 +0000

Although the emphasis on gender equality is still important it is vital to ensure that DFID prioritises improving access to an inclusive, quality education for ALL children, particularly disabled children as it is estimated that they account for over one third of the world’s 75 million out-of-school children.