ICEVI - International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment

Newsletter, June 2009
e-mail: ie@unesco.org

SPREADING THE NEWS!

In this issue:

1.INTRODUCTION
We welcome you to our June, 2009 issue of "e-FlagNews" from the joint secretariat of the UNESCO Education for All (EFA) Flagship - The Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities: Towards Inclusion. We would like to welcome our new readers and reiterate our main aim which is to keep you updated on some of the important recent and forthcoming activities concerning the right to education for persons with disabilities.

The Flagship joint Secretariat is shared by Universities of Jyväskylä and Joensuu (Finland), Finnish Disabled People's International Development Association FIDIDA and UNESCO. For those of you who are not familiar with our flagship, might we suggest you read more about us through this link: http://www.inclusionflagship.net

2.UNESCO POLICY GUIDELINES
Substantial progress has been made in achieving the Education for All goals as evidenced by the increase in access and enrolment rates in many countries and regions. Nevertheless, it is evident that new strategies and methods must be adopted to reach out to the 75 million children who are still out of school (one third of them are children with disabilities), the 774 million adults lacking basic literacy skills and the countless others who are in school but not necessarily receiving quality education. From a policy perspective, inclusive education means taking a holistic approach to education reform and thus changing the way the educational system tackles exclusion. Without clear, unified national strategies to include all learners, many countries will not achieve the Education for All (EFA) goals by 2015 and will seriously affect the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well.

The concept and practice of inclusive education have gained importance in recent years. Internationally, the term is increasingly understood more broadly as a reform that supports and welcomes diversity amongst all learners.

Inclusive education is a process that involves the transformation of schools and other centres of learning to cater for all children-including boys and girls, students from ethnic and linguistic minorities, rural populations, those affected by HIV and AIDS, and those with disabilities and difficulties in learning and to provide learning opportunities for all youth and adults as well. Its aim is to eliminate exclusion that is a consequence of negative attitudes and a lack of response to diversity in race, economic status, social class, ethnicity, language, religion, gender, sexual orientation and ability. Education takes place in many contexts, both formal and non-formal, and within families and the wider community. Consequently, inclusive education is not a marginal issue but is central to the achievement of quality education for all learners and the development of more inclusive societies. Inclusive education is essential to achieve social equity and is a constituent element of lifelong learning.

The recent Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities further supports and encourages renewed efforts for improvement of inclusive schooling.

Following the information and backgrounds gained through the preparations for and the outcomes of the International Conference on Education (ICE) in November 2008, UNESCO has revised and further developed its Policy Guidelines on Inclusion in Education.

Policy Guidelines aims to:
...assist countries in strengthening the focus on inclusion in their strategies and plans for education, to introduce the broadened concept of inclusive education and to highlight the areas that need particular attention to promote inclusive education and strengthen policy development.

It provides a discussion of and rationale for inclusive education and then considers how educational policy can be moved forward via:

Whilst this document describes the necessary actions to be taken, the remit of the document does not allow these actions to be illustrated or exemplified and this is an area for future development described in the "Inclusion in Action" project (below).

3."INCLUSION IN ACTION" PROJECT
The Inclusive Education in Action project will be based on a unique collaboration between a number of international organisations working in the field of inclusive education: UNESCO HQ, the EFA Flagship, UNESCO-IBE, the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education and GPDD. The project will draw upon the existing respective knowledge and expertise from these organisations and their well established international networks of policy makers and practitioners. The project will involve key officers from UNESCO HQ and IBE as well as its 'Education for All' Flagship Programme, the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education and GPDD.

The starting point for the project will be the UNESCO Policy Guidelines on Inclusion in Education, which considers in detail how the 'policy cycle' for inclusive education can be supported:

Inclusive education systems and societies can only be realized if governments are aware of the nature of the problem and are committed to solving it. This must be reflected in the willingness to undertake in-depth analysis of the size and character of the out-of-school populations and ensure their integration into quality school and other kinds of education and training programmes. Such analysis would frequently require improved data systems and data collection methods.

The UNESCO Policy Guidelines presents the key issues that need to be addressed if a country's policy cycle of needs identification planning, implementation and monitoring for inclusive education is to be effectively enacted. The scope of the document however does not allow for specific examples of policy and practice for inclusive education. The goal of the proposed project is to provide such examples through the development of an easily accessible resource base that presents innovative examples of policy and practice for inclusive education. The aim is to combine the information and knowledge in this field and to work jointly in order to identify, analyse and then present examples of policy and practice that best exemplify the key suggested actions for inclusive education.

4.A WORLD FOR INCLUSION DOCUMENTARY (DVD)
UNESCO's EFA Flagship Programme on the Right to Education for Persons with Disabilities, together with its partners produced a documentary in the hope that it will affect the lives of countless children in around the world, particularly from developing countries, who are among some of the most marginalized in the world. Over 90% of children with disabilities in developing countries are not in school. The documentary focuses on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, in particular article 24 on education. Using footage from schools in Kenya, Finland and Turkey, it addresses the situation of children with disabilities worldwide and the importance of getting them into school. It also contains interviews and commentary from stakeholders and experts and some 50 educational resources such as toolkits and policy guidelines.
The DVD can be ordered by sending an e-mail to: kms.librarian@unesco.org

5."INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: THE WAY OF THE FUTURE", 25-28 NOVEMBER, 2008
The theme of the 48th session of the International Conference on Education was "Inclusive Education: the Way of the Future". The Conference was held in November, 2008 in Geneva. It was organized by the International Bureau of Education (IBE).

The Conclusions and Recommendations of the 48th session suggested that the global financial crisis will have a disproportionate impact on the poor. In this context, the importance of inclusive education for reducing poverty and improving health, incomes and livelihoods was reaffirmed. Inclusive quality education is fundamental to achieving human, social and economic development.

Building on the outcomes of the nine preparatory meetings and four regional conferences on inclusive education organised by IBE, and based on the results of plenary sessions and workshop debates which took place during the Conference, the document calls upon Member States to adopt an inclusive education approach in the design, implementation, monitoring and assessment of educational policies as a way to further accelerate the attainment of Education for All (EFA) goals as well as to contribute to building more inclusive societies. To this end, a broadened concept of inclusive education is viewed as a general guiding principle to strengthen education for sustainable development, lifelong learning for all and equal access of all levels of society to learning opportunities so as to implement the principles of inclusive education.

The full "Conclusions and Recommendations of the 48th session of the International Conference on Education" document is available at: http://www.ibe.unesco.org/en/ice/48th-session-2008/conclusions-and-recommendations.html

The UNESCO ED/BAS Section for Inclusion and Quality Learning Enhancement together with the Flagship Secretariat organised a side event at the conference titled "Policy Guidelines on Inclusion in Education; A Resource to design more effective policies for reaching the EFA goals". The side event was moderated by Kenneth Eklindh (Senior Programme Specialist for Inclusive Education at UNESCO and a member of the Flagship Secretariat). The aim of this event was to provide information and raise awareness about the implications for inclusive education as an effective tool to facilitate work towards the EFA goals and, to provide inputs for the finalisation of the policy guidelines. The panellists were Seamus Hegarty, Victor Pineda and Mari Koistinen. In addition, Hannu Savolainen (University of Joensuu, Finland) from the Flagship Secretariat was one of the keynote Speakers at the Conference. Finally, "A World for Inclusion" documentary DVD was widely distributed at the event.

6.OSLO DECLARATION "ACTING TOGETHER, 16-18 DECEMBER, 2008
Eighth Meeting of the High-Level Group on Education for All took place in Oslo, Norway 16-18 December 2008. The Oslo Declaration "Acting Together" calls upon EFA partners to support national commitments to educational equity, both with regards to access, attendance and to learning processes and outcomes. This should include the development of well-defined and gender-sensitive targets to measure equity, as well as indicators and monitoring tools to this end. Joint knowledge and data sharing on equity in education should be supported by the EFA partners, led by the convening agencies, to help ensure capacity building and improved policy development, planning and implementation.

The Declaration also urgently calls on national governments to allocate adequate domestic resources (4-6% of GNP / 15-20% of public expenditure) to education, on development partners to increase official development assistance in accordance with the Doha declaration and on all EFA partners to prioritise investment in basic education within a balanced approach to the whole sector.

The full document is available at:
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0017/001794/179421E.pdf

The Ninth High-Level Group meeting on EFA is to be held in Addis Ababa, in February 2010.

7.REGIONAL WORKSHOP ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN CHILE IN SEPTEMBER, 2009
The EFA Flagship together with UNESCO HQ, OREALC and IBE are organizing a Latin America Workshop on the Implementation of Inclusive Policies as a follow up of the ICE 2008 meeting "Inclusion Education; the way of the future" and looking into the implementation of the new Convention on the Rights of persons with Disabilities. The meeting takes place in Santiago de Chile, Chile, 2 - 4 September, 2009. More information can be found at http://www.inclusionflagship.net in due course.

8.CONFERENCES AND SEMINARS ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

9.CONTACT US
Don't forget to contact us with YOUR news and views so they can be included in the next "e-FlagNews". For additional information please visit: http://www.inclusionflagship.net/news.html
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Wishing you all a very pleasant summer!

Flagship Secretariat

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