Regular schools are open to students with disabilities
Uwihanganye Claude, 12, lives in the district of Muhanga, in the southern province of Rwanda, a mountainous area west of the capital, Kigali. Claude had polio as a child and until recently did not go to school. He was on the hills that Claude stopped to join the children in the local class, but an uphill battle of a different species.
In Rwanda, children with disabilities are often discriminated against and excluded from school and community life. Silas Ngayaboshya, local program manager for Handicap International (HI), states that "many families hide their children at home as having a disability is a shameful thing for the child and his family because he is regarded as a punishment of God. "
Department
education in Rwanda said that 10% of youth with disabilities, while the Education for All Global Monitoring Report (EFA) in 2010 concluded that the number of disabled children in schools is likely to be low. Some attend their regular school locally, but most are in special schools and centers in urban areas, too far for most Rwandans, especially for children with visual or hearing impairments.
Despite these shortcomings, the Rwandan education system is generally considered one of the most progressive in Africa. Recently, the government created a free and compulsory education for the first nine years of schooling for all children in Rwanda (This initiative is expected to increase to 12 next year). According to UNICEF, Rwanda now has the highest primary school enrollment in Africa (95% of men and 97% of girls in 2009).
awareness on the rights of children with special needs to participate in their communities, or perhaps the lack of special schools in rural areas has led to a program "Kids" school which is intended to include all the education of vulnerable children in regular schools.
Currently, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF Fund 54 "Child Friendly" schools in Rwanda, which also offer the "best practice" examples of other schools in the areas of your group. A 2009 report on the initiative of UNICEF said that they had helped 7,500 disabled children. The government is trying to expand the program to 400 schools across the country in 2012, and also adopted a basic rule for all primary schools in Rwanda.
stands out among the NGOs that manage the program. Its objective is to increase the number of disabled children attending mainstream schools by linking schools with special schools for disabled children. HI collaborates with local education, families, disabled children and their non-disabled peers and local communities and is dedicated to raising awareness. It is located in non-school children with disabilities, teacher training, improve access and infrastructure, and developing inclusive education policies in government.
Claude took weeks to integrate into school life, but now get good grades and making friends. And he walks a mile every day on crutches to go to school. Although still a long way to not mind the trip and is excited about the class.
Ngayaboshya said that from 2007 to present, HI has supported nearly 4000 children to attend general education in 78 schools. "It's very, very impressive," said Ngayaboshya, when it comes to the capture of Rwandan children with disabilities in local schools. "This shows the degree of openness to new ideas of our people can be." Dr. Evariste Karangwa, a prominent educator and Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the Kigali Institute of Education (KIE), said it was "encouraging changes "in special schools and regular over the last five years." But, "adds Karangwa, who also founded the department of special education at KIE through which all new teachers in Rwanda now earn a little training in inclusive education and the needs of disabled children, "this does not mean that all is well I am not happy with the pace of change:. a large number of disabled children do not attend school, while many of those who not reach or abandonment "
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