Inclusive Education in Uganda

The blog post What is Inclusive Education? introduced the idea of inclusive education as a way to integrate pupils. This blog post will look at the Ugandan perspective on inclusive education. Children with disabilities (CWDs) are some of the most vulnerable members of society. Their education is vital to economic development. Getting a good education is a way to get out of poverty. Moreover, through education CWDs will discover their self worth and develop as useful members of society. Is inclusive education an unrealistic ideal for Uganda? What is the Ugandan position on inclusive education?

There has been an inclusive education initiative between the Ugandan and Danish Government since 1991. The story is told in this report accessed November 2016, Towards Inclusive Education: A case from Uganda. Between 1991 and 2001 the Ugandan government began developing an inclusive education environment with the Danish government. Its purpose was to provide special needs training. Three teachers were appointed to be assistant inspectors in a plan to administer special needs services in districts and update community leaders, parents and teachers concerning individual needs and inclusive education. The report Towards Inclusive Education: A case from Uganda continues:

As a result of Universal Primary Education, which was introduced in 1997, and a greater awareness regarding inclusive education, a large number of learners were enrolled in primary and secondary schools including learners experiencing barriers to learning. Today, the increased number of learners in schools required enlarged resources, which is difficult for the country to provide.

The number of specially trained teachers to serve as special/resource teachers is not sufficient to cover the actual need. Teachers trained in special needs education will require time to find the best ways of how to support teachers who must support learners in need. Appropriate time for both teachers and learners must be allocated for necessary support, keeping in mind that the special teachers are often also assigned other duties in addition to education of learners with special educational needs.

Many children who are physically, emotionally or sexually abused do not only suffer emotionally or have physical damage. Such abuse may force them to miss school, and eventually “drop out” of the system. These learners need extra care and support from teachers.

Many teachers are still not able sufficiently to assist learners in an inclusive school due to limited in-service training and supervision on how to develop a child-friendly class that can accommodate the diversity among learners.

New trends in education

The Government is constantly adopting its educational structure and content to promote quality learning for all learners independent of special learning needs. The overall structure of education and related services for learners with learning difficulties, which was introduced in the early nineties, is still the backbone in the education of all learners.

However, the Ministry of Education has introduced a number of changes to ensure that education of learners with special learning needs is an integrated part of the ministry’s structure both at central and decentralized level.

The district-based Teachers Development and Management System Centres, which did not exist when the structure for special needs education was developed in the early nineties, play an important role in implementing inclusive education. These centres are established in all districts of Uganda. Most of the Centre Coordinating Tutors have received training in special needs education and inclusion. They are expected to provide supervisory support to teachers in schools in their area, organize in-service training, develop educational materials, and upgrade Teacher Training Centers.

An inclusive education system must provide a flexible curriculum responsive to differences among learners. The Ministry of Education has acknowledged this and launched a department at National Curriculum Development Centre consisting of a panel of 18 specialists in education of learners with special learning needs. The panel adopts and modifies the primary school curriculum to suit diverse learning needs and educational strategies.

The Ministry’s effort to ensure equal opportunities for all learners has also been demonstrated by the introduction of a department at the National Examinations Board to cater for examination of learners with diverse needs.

The Government has introduced free universal primary and secondary education. This means no tuition fees, although parents may have to pay fees for food, materials, etc. Free education is of great importance for learners with learning difficulties including learners with disabilities. Traditionally, these children have been the last children in the families to get school tuition and fees.

To provide education for learners with diverse educational needs the Government has strengthened the budget lines at central and district levels. To do so the Government collaborates with a number of development partners and non-governmental organizations. The key role of many specially trained teachers will be to manage learning programmes within an inclusive school. The Ministry of Education therefore decided that Uganda National Institute of Special Education should merge with Kyambogo University with status of faculty.

Teaching of learners with learning difficulties has been mainstreamed into the curriculum for Teacher Training Colleges to ensure that all graduating teachers have basic knowledge about teaching the diversity of children in an inclusive class.

In order to obtain higher standards in existing special schools, to ensure quality education for learners who require intensive levels of support and to promote the possible use of special schools as resource centers to support inclusive education the Ministry of Education has developed guidelines for requirements and minimum standards indicators for these schools.

Where does the Ministry of Education and Sports go from here?

The Government has still to consider that education for all in inclusive schools requires changes and the whole system has to be adjusted to accommodate all learners.

It should further be considered that development of an inclusive education system which will provide for the needs of all learners will require sustained resources – financial and committed human resources.

To do this, it is necessary for the Government to recognize the present lack of resources given to the education sector in general and education of learners with special needs in particular. There is still a great lack of learning environments that are free from physical and psychological barriers. Further there is a lack of educational materials and sufficient number of teachers available with training in education of learners with barriers to learning, development and participation.

Finally, learners with severe disabilities do not receive required assessment, individually adjusted teaching, training and equipment required. A few learners with severe learning needs will still need to be taught in a special school.

It is crucial for the Ministry of Education to further develop a support system which can provide continuous and competent guidance to teachers, learners and parents in order to ensure that quality education takes place.

Inclusive education in Uganda

Despite a positive start the ideal of inclusion has stalled. Lack of trained staff and support for the most vulnerable people in the community is holding back the development of inclusive education. The following article is the view of a person with a disability that has passed through the education system in Uganda. This blog post from August 2016, Towards Inclusive Education: ensuring education access for all by 2030, sums up the situation in Uganda:

Despite the fact that the realization of universal education has been of prime interest to the international community since the 1940s, most children and youth with disabilities continue to be excluded from educational opportunities. Globally, enrollment and completion of primary and secondary education by youth with disabilities is extremely low, with my home country of Uganda being no exception. Although the Government of Uganda introduced inclusive education in 1997 through the introduction of the Universal Primary Education, only about 9% of school aged girls and boys with disabilities who attend primary school in Uganda – compared with a National average of 92% of their non-disabled counterparts. Of the few children with disabilities which attend primary school, only 6% continue their studies into in secondary schools, compared to the national average of 25%). Access to education for children with disabilities is severely restricted in Uganda, impacting most significantly girls. Girls with disabilities who are in poor households based in rural areas are the least likely to ever attend school. Furthermore, girls with disabilities face the greatest risk of experiencing multiple factors of discrimination, which is particularly true for girls with intellectual or developmental disabilities. 

Social and environmental barriers

The United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) initiated the concept of inclusive education in relation to promote second Millennium Development Goal of Universal Primary Education (United Nations, 2000) and later Goal 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet in the 10 years since the formation of the UNCRPD, there has been little progress in inclusive education for children and youth with disabilities. Many schools are still not equipped with necessary assistive devices and accessible structures. Schools that have no ramps and walkways provide the first barrier to inclusive education.

When basic school infrastructure such as latrines are not accessible and secure, children with disability, in particular girls, are unlikely to attend during adolescence. Amongst all vulnerable groups, girls with disability are the most vulnerable to gender-based violence. Studies have revealed that parents of girls with disabilities and girls themselves often cite safety and security constraints as a critical concern and a prime reason for withdrawing from school during adolescence. Ensuring schools have functional, accessible, and separate WASH facilities for girls is essential for creating a safe and supportive school environment for girls and reducing risk of exposure to gender-based violence.

Provide students with the tools to succeed by integrating information technology

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development suggests that up to 35% of students including children and youth with disabilities require some form of special support to meet their individual learning needs during their school careers. Information technology connected schools which utilize a mix of assistive technologies (such as braille embossers, text to speech computer software, and recorders), are windows to opportunity for learners with disabilities. When assistive devices and technologies are not available to children with disabilities in the classroom they are unable to fully participate and communicate as a student in the classroom which leads to social exclusion, reduced educational opportunities, and poorer employment outcomes.

Training and resourcing teachers is key to implementing inclusive education

Teachers trained in how to implement a child-to-child and student centered approaches, are able to understand the value and tools of inclusive education, and are therefore more likely to implement these skills and strategies in the classroom for benefit of all students, and in particular, with disabilities. In rural schools the need for trained teachers is particularly high. Teachers based remotely are often those that are more likely to have a higher percentage of students with disabilities, yet they are often the last to be trained and are more frequently under resourced than teachers based regionally. Furthermore, teachers who have been trained in inclusive education are less likely to have discriminatory attitudes and misconceptions of students with disabilities.

Meaningful inclusion for all – toward 2030 education goals

Accessible education for children with disabilities does not begin and end with physically accessible infrastructure. Donors and governments must also invest in accessible materials and aids for students, inclusive curriculums and guidebooks for teachers, and follow-up teacher training to support teachers to effectively implement and support the inclusion of young learners with disabilities.

There is a great need to take appropriate steps to protect and ensure safe and equitable access to education for children and youth with disability, and in particular girls with disability – in full recognition of the specific and unique barriers that they face as girls. Only if we can take these steps towards full and meaningful inclusion of all learners with disabilities, will it be possible for us to achieve education equity for all girls and boys by 2030.

For many people the uncomfortable truth is that inclusive education is an ideal that cannot be achieved. Besides the financial burden, schools must face the stigma and prejudice of parents that don't want their non disabled child associating with CWDs. Perhaps the greatest problem an inclusive school must face is stigma and prejudice from society. In this 2013 article Shifa Mwesigye from The Observer/Nudipu looks at Inclusive education – an ideal too expensive?

For some reason, this school instantly strikes you as different.  On a merry-go-round, a toddler pushes a drowsy-looking playmate who throws his hands up to feel the air brushing off his face. Another boy, perhaps 12 years old, is walking to the play shade – with palpable difficulty. Other boys and girls show no such difficulty as their mentally and physically disabled mates, running around the place to create a lively chuckle of a normal school.

Welcome to Hill Preparatory School (HPS) in Kampala’s posh suburb of Naguru. The boy with hands up in the air has Down Syndrome. There are more children with autism, dyslexia and physical disability. But these children with disabilities (CWDs) happily interact and play with “regular” or able-bodied children.

This is one of Uganda’s model primary schools on inclusive education. Its mission is:  “To provide an integrated learning environment, where children with learning disabilities are educated alongside their regular counterparts for mutual benefit.”

The head teacher, Ambrose Lukusa Kibuuka, says HPS has been providing inclusive education for the last 25 years.

“We believe that each child will benefit from such kind of setting. Classes have small numbers of 20 children where with every four regular children, we have a special-needs child,” Kibuuka says.

Hence each child receives due attention, with special-needs youngsters learning a lot from the regular ones. The latter also learn the patience of dealing with people. By the end of 2012, HPS had 105 children, including 40 with special needs. Some are mentally challenged; others have speech and learning disabilities, physical disabilities, hearing problems, among others.

The school has facilities like ramps and trained teachers in handling CWDs. It has learning-stimulating amenities, a swimming pool, computers, pictograms, flash cards and vocational training equipment like sewing machines.

“Each child in our setting is handled as an individual. We take each child at their pace and at the end of the day no child loses, “ Kibuuka says.

It may seem like when Ms Clare Wavamunno was starting HPS in 1988, she was reading from the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Her school conforms to standards provided for in the UNCRPD.

Non-discrimination

The convention obliges governments to recognise the right of PWDs to education without any discrimination.

“[Ensure that] PWDs are not excluded from free and compulsory primary or secondary education, on the basis of disability. PWDs shall be enabled to learn life and develop social skills using Braille, alternative script, sign language and linguistic identity for the deaf community,” Article 24 of the UNCRPD states.

The convention recommends that states employ teachers, including teachers with disabilities, who are qualified in sign language or Braille. These recommendations are catered for in Uganda’s policy on Special Needs and Inclusive Education (SNIE) which was launched in 2011 by Jessica Alupo, the minister for Education and Sports.

When the SNIE policy was passed in 2011, HPS was used as an example of what inclusive education means. This school receives visitors who want to learn how children are integrated, how they are taught in one class what learning material and infrastructure they use and how they manage to make their pupils pass. In 2011, of the eight pupils who sat for PLE, six passed in grade I.

Ms Wavamunno’s feat  is rare. The government is not even halfway through implementing recommendations in their UPE and SNIE policies and the UNCRDP which Uganda ratified. The UPE policy says priority should be given to a child with disability; they should be mobilised and given first admission. By 2010, enrolment of CWDs in school was 150,559 of whom 82,537 were male and 68,022 female.

School of choice

The SNIE policy states that CWDs can go to any school they want. This is in line with the UNCRPD’s recommendations of promoting inclusive education as a strategy to disability mainstreaming. Educating a disabled person will benefit them, their parents, community and the country by empowering them with knowledge and skills to work and sustain themselves rather than depend on others. So, the government  should have a selfish interest in this process.

But according to Esther Kyozira, a programme  manager at National Union of Disabled Persons of  Uganda (Nudipu), there has been no concerted effort to implement the above policies.

“Whereas they say that they are promoting inclusive education, children with disabilities are denied access to school, [saying] that their disability is severe and they cannot be managed,” Kyozira says. “When you look at it, they are right;  if a school does not have a teacher, who will teach a deaf? So, we wonder where the inclusion is.”

Yet according to the UNCRDP, states must ensure education for the blind and deaf or deaf-blind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and communication for the individual. Kibuuka says the problem also starts right at home where parents don’t take their disabled children to school. He says parents also stigmatise CWDs.

“Do you know if I offered free places for a regular child in this school, I may not get ten people to come? Stigma is very deeply rooted in society. Parents come here and they like the school but they don’t come back because they do not like their children to be associated with special-needs children,” Kibuuka says, almost angry.

Yet the convention obliges states parties to ensure an inclusive education system at all levels and lifelong learning.

“This is directed to the full development of human potential, sense of dignity and self-worth, their personality, talents and creativity, as well as their mental and physical abilities,” the convention states in section one of Article 24.

Kyozira says if the government invested in training more teachers and building physical infrastructure, there would be no need to have special-needs schools because the convention does not advocate for it. Uganda has special-needs schools like Uganda School for the Deaf, Salama School for the Blind, St Francis School for the Blind Madera, Kampala School of the Physically Handicapped.

According to the convention, putting  PWDS in ‘special’ schools isolates them and forestalls integration with the wider society.

“We want to see government allocating enough resources towards the purchase of equipment, training of professionals and awareness of the parents and the public about the right to education of children with disabilities,” Kyozira says.

It is a point that Negris Onen, the Assistant Commissioner for Inclusive Education and Non-formal Education, concedes. But he also points at positives.

Limited budget

He says special needs was a small section in the ministry of Education, which was made a department in the 90s, with a recurrent budget of about Shs 1.2 billion. But Onen says the only development budget comes in from the crosscutting departments like the primary, secondary or higher education. For example, the Basic Education department has a budget line of about Shs 1 billion for the special needs.

This is used for procuring instruction material and assistive devices like Braille kits, wheeledchairs, magnifying glasses, white cane, sign language dictionaries and manuals. Onen says nearly every school in Uganda has CWDs while over 100 schools are using the inclusive education model. These schools are provided with subvention grants of Shs 15,000 per child.

“We are training teachers, buying instructional material and improving the infrastructure. It is a challenge we have today in implementing the policy because we are still inadequate,” Onen says, adding “The ministry has taken into account all these things. Our construction plan in the ministry states that any school constructing today must include ramps,” Onen says.

Back at HPS, Kibuuka reiterates the ideals behind the school. But he says the school is very expensive to provide and maintain. Starting this year, they are changing the learning system; children with special needs will have their own centre and regular children continue in their own classes – although in the same school with a difference.

Inclusive education has been developed in Uganda for many years. The success of the system has led to it being made available throughout Uganda. However there is a lack of trained and skilled staff. It is vital that the Ugandan Ministry of Education and Sports continues its progress developing a curriculum and system to ensure all pupils are educated in inclusive schools. In an inclusive environment all students benefit equally. It is important that adequate resources are allocated so that some of the most vulnerable members of society can develop to their fullest potential.