Policy and practice of inclusive education in Cambodia and Laos

This brief look at policy and practice in inclusive education begins with the situation in Lao PDR, with its ethnically diverse population of just over six million people. The inclusive education programme began in a primary school in the capital, Vientiane, in 1993. There was no national policy on inclusive education at that time. The policy has been developed since based on the developments in practice.

Education practitioners and policy makers from neighbouring countries, including Cambodia, have visited the Lao programme. These visits have proved inspiring and have helped their neighbours to develop a similar model of education, appropriate to low-income countries. In the same way, Lao practitioners went on study tours to Thailand, Hong Kong and China in the early 1990s as part of their exposure to the practice of inclusive education in the south-east Asia region.

The development of the IE project was divided into three major stages:

1. The pilot project stage – 1993-1995
2. The National experiment stage – 1995-2000 (Phase I)
3. The period of expansion 2000 –2005 (Phase II).

The Lao government is committed to the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The government’s Education for All strategy and the Lao Millennium Goals articulate this commitment. IE was included as a strategy to support this commitment in the 2000 Lao Education Law. Although its focus has been children with special needs, especially those with physical and intellectual or other mental challenges, the implementation of IE has raised awareness and attempted to tackle barriers to access to education.

Aims of the IE project:

• To increase access to education for children with special educational needs
• To reduce the rate of drop out and repetition
• To raise levels of achievement.

Strategies include:

• Improving the quality of teaching
• Improving the physical and social environments of schools and classrooms
• Developing stronger links with communities.

In the areas where IE training has been received, enrolment, retention and attendance have improved among children with special needs and there has been a decrease in repetition. This has happened as a result of the setting up of systems to identify children and train teachers to work productively with them. Children with severe disability are able to attend the National Rehabilitation Centre and later return to their own schools.

Learning to respect difference has had an effect on IE school staff and students and there has been a reduction in discrimination along with a heightening of self esteem among students. Participation in education ensures that children with special needs are better protected, both as a result of having educational opportunities and because they are more visible and accepted within their communities. Advocacy work has led to the recognition that children with special needs can achieve and become productive members of society.

Some young people have successfully completed secondary school and entered higher education, though there are barriers in some institutions because they have not yet considered how they might provide support. There is a need for advocacy work to be done in higher education and vocational training to ensure equal access.

The education policy ensures that IE training will be mainstreamed through the pre-service and in-service teacher training programmes for all teachers. This is a direct result of the success of the IE Project since its inception in 1993. However no additional staff have yet been appointed to implement these courses.

A recent evaluation report (2004) recommends that the government take into consideration the training that teachers have already received and the changes they have made to their practice. It is recognised that learner-centred teaching requires more planning and preparation, and teachers should be given credit for this. Discussions have taken place about potential financial rewards for this work.

As a result of the project’s success and advocacy at international events, Lao PDR’s work in IE is recognized internationally. Regional visitors have considered using or adapting this comparatively low cost model in their systems.

Cambodia
The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (MoEYS) has set itself the goal of achieving Education for All (EFA) by 2015 and has adopted Inclusive Education as its vision . The Ministry takes the principle of inclusiveness as a central tenet of its approach in its Education Strategic Plan (ESP). In broad terms, the priority is to ensure that the poor and marginalized groups are included in all aspects of education and training. Other vulnerable and under-served groups including ethnic minorities, girls, female heads of households, and disabled children, fall within the framework of inclusive schooling.

The Education Sector Support Programme 2004/2008 has been developed to implement the ESP. It aims to strengthen arrangements for remedial classes. The programme will also strengthen inclusive education policies to ensure equitable access for disadvantaged and disabled children and girls, and by focusing on life skill for preventing HIV/AIDS and other health problems. In order to make this commitment a reality it is essential to develop a national framework where special schools and NGOs work in partnership with MoEYS and other ministries under a national strategy.

There are no accurate statistics on the number of children with disabilities in and out of school in Cambodia, although it has one of the highest rates of disability in the world. However many children with mild and moderate disabilities are attending their local school. An MoEYS survey of 21 provinces found that a total of 63,072 children with disabilities were attending school in the academic year 2001-2.

However the teachers have little or no knowledge of how to accommodate their special needs and it is likely that though physically present at school they may not be fully included. A small number of children with disabilities are receiving support in the form of assistance with transport, materials and fees to attend school from NGOs working in disability.

An even smaller number of children (500 children) are attending special schools or classes run by NGOs. All the special schools aim to integrate children with disabilities into the mainstream system when and if appropriate. Currently these special schools only have informal links with MoEYS. NGOs are providing limited support to individual children with disabilities to attend school, but this support is uncoordinated, patchy and focused almost exclusively of children with physical disabilities, or children who are deaf or blind.

The main barriers preventing children with disabilities attending school are largely the same as those faced by other children. The Disability Action Council (DAC) conducted a small survey around one school cluster in Svay Teab district, Svay Rieng . This survey revealed 158 children with disabilities, under the age of 15, living in the 30 villages surrounding the nine schools in the cluster. Nearly 50% of these children were attending school. The children at school had a wide range of disabilities including intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy and hearing impairments.

The high number of children with disabilities at school was surprising as was the types of disabilities they had. None of the schools in the cluster or the children with disabilities were receiving any support from NGOs. The schools in the cluster were in a rural location, away from major roads and suffered from over crowding and poor facilities, thus they would appear to be typical of most primary schools in the country. Preliminary investigations by the DAC would suggest that although many children with disabilities are at school, their special needs might not be being adequately met.

The DAC/MoEYS “Project to Develop Education Opportunities to Meet the Specific Needs of Children with Disabilities” developed inclusive practices within the nine schools in the cluster. As a result of this experience it is recommended that inclusive education should be developed through targeted clusters and not in individual schools. Clusters should be chosen by their proximity to special schools and other rehabilitation services.