44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 28, 2023
- 11:14:58 a.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Good morning.
Thank you for inviting me to appear before the committee.
Canada has made significant commitments toward inclusive education, which are also reflected within the Feminist International Assistance Policy's intersectional lens and each of the Minister of International Development's mandate letters. However, Canada must adopt and fund more specific and targeted interventions in order really to meet its inclusive education commitments.
The numbers are stark. One in 10 children has a disability, and an astounding 49% are more likely than their peers to have never attended school. Forty-two per cent are less likely to have adequate foundational reading and numeracy skills.
What are the barriers to inclusive education? Physical barriers are often the first thing that comes to mind. Those are often resolved by assistive devices like wheelchairs or ramps, but invisible barriers are often more of a challenge to address. Those include attitudinal barriers like stigma, so that children with disabilities are often shunned by community members or hidden by families because of gross misconceptions and fears. Children with disabilities are also twice as likely to face sexual, physical or mental abuse, and they are much more likely to be bullied.
Children with disabilities also face important institutional barriers such as a lack of inclusive education policies, teacher training modules or adapted education programs.
In addition, inclusive education initiatives tend to consider children with disabilities as a homogeneous group rather than offer adapted strategies to meet the needs associated with various types of disabilities, physical, intellectual or developmental.
It should also not be forgotten that girls with disabilities are especially vulnerable to violence and that gender norms contribute to reduced access to quality education. This was shown in a recent report published by Humanity and Inclusion, formerly Handicap International, on the education of girls with disabilities in West Africa.
How can we overcome these barriers? Humanity and Inclusion recommends a twin-track approach that includes both mainstreaming inclusion in the education sector and focusing on targeted support for learners with disabilities. Mainstreaming refers to the full integration of disability inclusion in the education system and national education plans. Humanity and Inclusion is currently working in 27 countries on 45 inclusive education projects to help transform education systems. This involves working on education policy, having early school screening and formal teacher training programs, and even building parents' capacity.
Mainstreaming is only half the solution. There must also be targeted support for learners with disabilities to achieve meaningful outcomes. Humanity and Inclusion has a wealth of experience demonstrating the efficacy of a targeted approach that focuses on disability-specific supports and community-based services, by working with more than 400,000 children with disabilities a year. This experience shows that it is essential to provide specific supports, such as appropriate assistive devices, adapted personal support and accessible learning tools. This helps us make sure that children with disabilities stay in school and reach their potential.
An example of community-based services is the establishment of mobile teachers, whose role is not only to support individual children with disabilities in schools, but also to guide and support teachers. This approach works. Rates of completion are higher. According to a school inspector from Togo, the number of pupils with disabilities is increasing in junior and senior secondary school, and school exam success rates are rising. These pupils now feel valued and are much more confident.
Another example of a multisectoral approach to community-based services is from Cox's Bazar refugee camp in Bangladesh, which houses over a million Rohingya refugees. Humanity and Inclusion works with multidisciplinary teams, which include mobile health units, education professionals, speech and language therapists and physiotherapists who can promote early learning both at home and in the learning centres, as well as greater community acceptance. This approach has really benefited young children with physical disabilities, as well as those with autism, Down's syndrome, and other developmental disabilities.
To close, I'd like to share a few recommendations. There are five in total.
First, we have to ensure that all education programs focus on this twin-track approach of providing support to children with disabilities and transforming education systems towards inclusion for all learners, which is in compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Second, we need to increase funding for educational programs that are focused on or include a dedicated objective on inclusive education. This should include stronger disaggregated data collection methods and tracking of budgets.
Third, we must include inclusive education training as a core part of continuing teacher training programs and ensure that it is properly funded.
Fourth, it is important to invest in long-term support for national and local actors, including local communities so that they can take ownership of inclusive education intervention and scale and sustain them in the long term.
Fifth, we must support the design and implementation of coordinated cross-sectoral strategies and thus work with various departments in the areas of education, social protection, health and equality.
Thank you for inviting me to speak to you on behalf of Humanity and Inclusion Canada.
853 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 11:57:11 a.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I will let my colleague Julia help me along with that, please.
Go ahead, Julia. Thanks for being here with me.
21 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:06:36 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
We're in a very difficult budget situation. The message we're getting from the Canadian government is that there's no funding.
We've also seen that programs that target persons with disabilities or that have adopted that strategy are the first ones to be cut because they cost more. It costs more to travel to where children with disabilities live.
I can also answer Ms. Vandenbeld's question on sexual and reproductive rights. Unfortunately, they're the first projects that get cut. That's the way it is in every country. The most vulnerable individuals are exposed to risk, and they're the first ones to lose out when budget cuts are made. It's always the case.
121 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:28:37 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Unfortunately, I haven't heard that. We mainly work internationally, not in Canada. However, I could say that, generally speaking, the percentages of people who lack access to education in francophone communities such as those in West Africa are higher than elsewhere. There are problems in that area.
48 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:29:25 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I'll ask my colleague Ms. McGeown to supplement my remarks if necessary.
We're essentially seeing something interesting happening. The organizations advocating for children's rights, women's rights and the rights of persons with disabilities aren't as well funded in francophone countries and are much more isolated. There are fewer regional mechanisms enabling those organizations to come together to plead their case to their governments and regions. We're seeing this particularly in the case of women's organizations. They're slightly more organized and funded on the anglophone side and are therefore slightly more successful at coming together and breaking out of their isolation in every country. Consequently, they have greater influence on their local governments and regions.
We're also seeing this trend in our Making It Work program, which supports the rights of women and girls. For the moment, it's much stronger in anglophone than francophone Africa.
155 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:30:48 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Julia, I don't know if you can answer this. I wouldn't be in a position to provide specific information on Cameroon at this time.
26 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:33:44 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
I'll answer your question and then let Ms. McGeown comment further.
Since we're talking about innovation, I'd like to tell you about an initiative of which I am very proud. We're working on a 3D printing project in Uganda. It isn't a project that's directly related to education, but it's part of our education program. It's a different project and it's funded.
3D printing enables us to produce prostheses and orthotics for children with physical disabilities. The special feature of this project is that it's being developed and is based in the community, at existing hospitals. So we're trying to develop local capacities.
Children are constantly growing, and as you can imagine, prostheses and orthotics must constantly be remade to adapt to their growing bodies. This new 3D printing technology lets us produce orthotics and prostheses that work for individual children, enables them to play and gives them physical access to school. This is an example of an innovation that's transformative for these children.
Julia, do you want to add anything?
184 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- 12:40:18 p.m.
- Watch
- Read Aloud
Thank you very much.
I'm happy to share the floor. I realize that Humanity and Inclusion has been speaking a lot, but I think we've given a number of different examples. We've given a number of examples on physical disability, everything from ramps to wheelchairs, but also realizing that if you think about the pathways to school, we're not talking about a nice paved sidewalk; we're talking about rocky roads that get washed out because of climate change and flooding.
Julia has given some great examples around communication and various developmental disabilities. I think we're starting to get a picture here, so I'll pass the baton very quickly.
115 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
