Inclusive education

There are clear categories of children who tend to be excluded from the formal schooling system. These include children from the poorest families, working children, street children, former child soldiers, and nomadic children.

Other excluded children are those from minority groups (tribals, Dalits, low castes or untouchables), children of migrant, landless or pastoralist families, orphans, children affected by HIV & AIDS, those with physical or mental disabilities.

ActionAid's mission requires us to position ourselves clearly on the side of these children. We work to ensure that these children have equal access to education. The following are just a few examples.

India: children with disabilities
In Tamil Nadu, disabled learners live with their teachers on school premises, follow the same curriculum and evaluation as other students, and have all the facilities to learn in and after school hours. The live-in teachers, known as akkas, are each responsible for a minimum of 5 to 10 disabled students. The akkas facilitate self-learning for the disabled children, as well as habit-formation exercises, painting, music and games.

Ghana: working in remote areas
ActionAid Ghana organised a national camp for girls from very remote areas, emphasising the importance of girls' education. This gained the support of both the public and the Ministry of Education, and the event has become an annual affair.

Nepal: helping dalit children
ActionAid Nepal was concerned that the children of dalits (so-called untouchables) rarely had access to education. This was difficult to address directly as school teachers and district education offices were seen to share prejudices. The starting point was therefore to work with adult education for dalits, enabling them to analyse the local situation. After a few months they decided to act on the exclusion of their children from local schools. Thousands of dalit women mobilised to protest at the district education offices, demanding that their children be given the same rights of access as other children. This led to a huge wave of new enrolments.

Sierra Leone: child soldiers
Sierra Leone is emerging from a 10-year period of conflict, during which a significant percentage of the population was displaced or became refugees. Thousands of children were separated from their families, abducted or conscripted into the fighting forces, and some were sexually abused and deprived of education and normal psychological development.

The armed conflicts undermined and changed traditional structures and relationships. School facilities were vandalised or completely destroyed and local communities lost any voice in policy-setting and resource allocation. ActionAid is now working closely with the government to ensure this lost generation of children can access education, and the psycho-social needs of traumatised children are addressed.

photo : ©Mark Phillips/ ActionAid