The post-2015 development framework needs to include disability

Disabled girls and disabled children living in remote areas face enormous barriers to enrolling in and completing school. Arpita, a 10 year old blind girl from Bangladesh, was one of them. Arpita didn’t go to school and her mother taught her daughter the alphabet and how to count. But Arpita longed to go to school like her sighted friends. Sightsavers informed her parents of an inclusive school that would accept and teach their daughter. Now Arpita is in Grade 2, and has a real chance of fulfilling her potential and her dream of helping others. But for the millions of disabled children who will never have the chance of going to school, all the progress made towards the Millennium Development Goal on Universal Education could be meaningless.

The most recent Communiqué of the United Nations High Level Panel (HLP) on the post-2015 development agenda contains some positives. It continues to express the need for an inclusive process, talks of ending extreme poverty and, perhaps unexpectedly, talks of more equitable and sustainable ways of managing production and consumption on our planet. However, beyond general mentions of social inclusion, it failed to really engage with inequality although we know that this is one of the ongoing debates among the panelists. In particular, Sightsavers is extremely disappointed that the High Level Panel failed to mention disability and, thus, failed children like Arpita.

Reducing inequalities is key for the post-2015 development agenda

Disabled people’s organizations and their allies – including those meeting in Bali on the eve of the High Level Panel meetings – have called for all targets in the new global development framework to be geared towards reducing inequalities (social, economic and political). This requires indicators which measure relative progress for groups who would otherwise be marginalized, including women, people with disabilities, older people and people living in rural areas. Monitoring progress will therefore require data to be disaggregated by these groups. Any post-2015 target can only be considered a success if the most excluded, including disabled people, have benefited equitably from any progress made.

Universal access to quality education is recognized as vital in the fight to reduce inequality and promote global justice. Yet research from the World Bank shows that “… children with disabilities are almost always much less likely to participate in schooling than are other children. They are also less likely to start school, and in some countries they have lower transition rates [to secondary school].”

Disability can be a more significant driver of educational exclusion than either gender or geographical location.

Negative behaviors exclude disabled people

In Sightsavers’ experience, negative attitudes and behaviors towards disabled people are a root cause of their exclusion from education. The families of disabled people, teachers, government officials and other influential members of society are all part of this process. Moreover, failings in the education system can prevent disabled people from accessing a quality education. For instance, a lack of well-trained teachers who are sensitive to inclusion and to disability is a major challenge. Similarly, a lack of accessible textbooks, a problem that is made worse by inexplicable intellectual property rules makes it very difficult for visually impaired and other disabled people to learn.

Positive examples from Kenya and Pakistan

Yet we know that when national governments, supported by the international community, demonstrate genuine political will, things can improve. In Kenya, for example, advocacy by civil society led the Ministry of Education to develop a policy to include disabled people in education, and to increase funding for each disabled child from US$15 to US$40. In Pakistan, Sightsavers has worked with communities to develop inclusive education infrastructure, provide accessible teaching and learning resources, and build the capacity of educators in inclusive education.

As said above, data is key to progress. The lack of internationally comparable data on the status of disabled people in education indicates the current failure to provide children with disabilities with a quality education. And we know that it is education that helps empower and include disabled people in society. Whatever replaces the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) must incentivize governments to plan, fund and promote the inclusion of disabled people. If we are serious about Education for All – and Development for All –we must not repeat the mistakes of the MDGs by ignoring inequality and focusing on the ‘easiest to reach.’

You cannot eradicate extreme poverty by ignoring the 1 billion disabled people on the planet.

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