FOCUS AREA: INCLUSIVE EDUCATION




THERE
CAN’T BE
BARRIERS
TO EDUCATING
CHILDREN
   Despite the considerable progress worldwide ensuring all
   children are enrolled in school, many children with disabilities
   are still left behind.

   WHY IT MATTERS                                                   OUR APPROACH
   Children with disabilities are often the most marginalized       The World Bank is committed to developing policies that
   and excluded from educational opportunities, limiting their      meet the needs of people with disabilities, as expanding
   opportunities to build independent lives free from poverty.      equitable opportunities is at the core of building inclusive
   Fifteen percent of the world’s population is estimated to        societies. The World Bank recognizes that more work
   have a disability. The exclusion of children with disabilities   is needed to ensure inclusive education. All children
   is severe globally and especially in low-income countries        deserve the opportunity to be in school and learn so they
   and regions. The problem is not limited to attending school.     acquire the skills and knowledge to thrive—regardless of
   Children with disabilities face barriers to learning even when   their diverse educational needs. We work with govern-
   they are in school: Too often, schools lack teachers with the    ments and civil society in a wide range of areas, providing
   adequate training and materials to provide disability-inclu-     diverse financial instruments, as well as analytical work
   sive education, and classroom facilities and learning re-        to inform institutional development, inclusive education
   sources often don’t accommodate specific needs. We need          sector planning, targeted educational programs, and
   policies that address the barriers faced by students with        multi-sectoral collaboration to support the process of
   disabilities and proactively work to ensure that all children    disability-inclusive development.
   can receive a quality education.
Governments must act to ensure equity and inclusion in education
so that children with disabilities can attend school and have the
necessary materials and assistance to learn and achieve.


OUR PRIORITIES:
1 Commit to inclusive education                                      2 Develop better data and knowledge to support
The World Bank’s aim is that all its education programs              inclusive education
and projects will be disability inclusive by 2025. Among             Quality data on participation and outcomes for children
other things, this means making schools inclusive by                 with disabilities is lacking. In addition, there are barriers on
removing physical barriers to access, training teachers              the supply and demand side of education that limit access
to adapt their teaching strategies to support all, and               and learning. There is limited evidence about effective
increasing the supply of accessible learning materials.              interventions that can be implemented at scale, especially
We also want to ensure that disability is reflected                  around pedagogical practices and technology-assisted
in national statistics systems, poverty, and growth                  learning. We are working to generate data and document
strategies.                                                          innovative approaches.
   To deliver on this commitment, we are partnering
with other development players. The Disability-Inclusive             3 Support disability-inclusive teaching
Education in Africa Program Trust Fund, which is funded
                                                                     It is critical to build educator and other school staff
through USAID, and the Inclusive Education Initiative,
                                                                     competencies to support learning for all students
launched with the support of the British and Norwegian
                                                                     through inclusive pedagogies and learning environments.
governments, are examples of initiatives that provide                The World Bank engages with countries to ensure that
coordinated technical expertise and resources to                     professional development and training incorporate
countries to support them in making their education                  strategies so that children with disabilities can participate
systems disability inclusive, so that no one is left behind.         and learn in schools. We are working to explore innovative
                                                                     and inclusive pedagogies, including effective uses of
                                                                     assistive technologies.




       educationgp@worldbank.org     worldbank.org/education    @WBG_Education Human Capital Project #INVESTinPeople