Implementing Inclusive Education
A Commonwealth Guide to Implementing Article 24 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Inclusion in education is a process of enabling all children to learn and participate effectively within mainstream school systems, without segregation. It is about shifting the focus from altering disabled people to fit into society to transforming society, and the world, by changing attitudes, removing barriers and providing the right support.
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires the development of an inclusive education system for all. This revised and expanded second edition of Implementing Inclusive Education examines the adoption of the Convention and provides examples, both through illustrated case studies and on the accompanying DVDs, of how inclusive education systems for all children have been established in pockets throughout the Commonwealth and beyond.
The message is clear: it can be done. The task is now to implement inclusive education worldwide.
Contents
Foreword
1. Introduction
Adoption of the Convention
The Commonwealth and the Convention
What do young disabled people want?
The long road to inclusive education
2. Inclusive Education: The Global Situation
Why is there so little progress on including disabled children in EFA?
3. Changing Attitudes to Disability
The shift from charity thinking to social and human rights thinking
The development of charity and medical model thinking
The development of social model thinking
4. Inclusive Education
Segregation, integration and inclusion
Integration or inclusion?
Inclusion for all: Is it a tool for bringing about disability equality in education?
The disability rights education model
Community-based rehabilitation
Identifying early childhood needs
Effective inclusive education
The costs of inclusion
Gender and inclusion
Inclusive education for disabled indigenous people
Key factors in the development of inclusive education
5. Developing and Implementing Policy Internationally
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
International Disability Alliance
The Commonwealth
Disabled Peoples’ International
Disability Rights Fund
Department for International Development, UK
The policy positions of international donors
Education International
Enabling Education Network
European Union
Inclusion International
International Disability and Development Consortium
Making It Work
Save the Children
UNESCO
UNICEF
World Bank
World Health Organization
World Vision
Conclusion
6. Developing National Inclusion Policies
Involving disabled people’s organisations
Involving the parents of disabled children
What progress are states making in implementing inclusive education?
Inclusion and the HIV/AIDs pandemic
7. Inclusion at Provincial, Regional and District Level
Involving disabled children and young people
Inclusion at district level
8. Inclusive Schools and Classrooms
Accommodating disabled pupils
UNESCO Toolkit
Index for Inclusion
Getting school buildings right
Teaching sensory-impaired children in poorer countries
Children with profound or multiple impairments
Integration or inclusion?
Training and employing disabled teachers
Implementing the Discrimination Act in schools in England: Reasonable accommodations
Annex: Reasonable adjustments in the classroom – a checklist
9. Preventing Drop-out: Developing Inclusive Teaching and Learning
Challenging and changing attitudes in the community
Barriers to inclusion
Bringing disability into the curriculum
Assessment
Teacher training and professional development
Conclusion
10. Conclusion
How effective is inclusive education?
World Report on Disability, 2011
Overcoming negative attitudes
Scaling up pilot projects
Inclusion: the ‘magic formula’
The way forward
Appendices
1. Useful Resources
2. The Long Road to Inclusive Education for Disabled Children
Bibliography
About the contributor
Richard Rieser (Author)
Richard Rieser is a disabled teacher who taught for 25 years in primary, secondary and further education. He was as an Advisory Teacher for Inclusion in the London Borough of Hackney (until April 2001). He was the Director of Disability Equality in Education (DEE) until 2009, an NGO proving training and resources for inclusion. Richard currently runs World of Inclusion Ltd. For 11 years, from 1990 to 2002, he was Chair of the Alliance for Inclusive Education.Reviews
‘Of the 67 million children throughout the world who are still excluded from school, 27 million are children with disabilities. Here at last is a report which provides the evidence that even the poorest countries can realise the goal of Inclusive Education for All – indeed that many do so more successfully than some so-called developed countries. Billions of beautiful words have been written about inclusive education. This report provides an action plan, based on first-hand evidence of what works and ways in which barriers can be overcome to make a reality of the United Nations goal of Education for All.’
Professor Peter Mittler, CBE, Former President, Inclusion International and UN consultant
‘Richard Rieser's book is timely and concerned with one of the fundamental articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. He makes sense of article 24, the right to education, and presents a how to approach for policy-makers and all those concerned with the provision of education in different settings. I'm pleased to know that there are outstanding individuals with disabilities, like the author, who are able to make sense of complex ideas and who makes it easy for educators and decision makers in government and NGOs, who wish to provide education in accordance with the UNCRPD.’
Shuaib Chalklen, UN Special Rapporteur on Disability
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