Introduction to Education for African Children with Disabilities
The Reality?
In Africa, an estimated 6.4% of children under 14 have moderate or severe disabilities; in Africa, fewer than 10 percent of children with disabilites receive any form of education and only 2 percent attend school (ACPF 2011). Why is this the case?Well, disabled students have historically been excluded and marginalized from education or offered segregated education. The general consensus being that children with disabilities are generally perceived as incapable of becoming self-sufficient, unable to learn, and thus undeserving of educational opportunity. (UN Disability for Africa) Thoughts of weakness, hopelessness, dependency, and subjects of charity often come to the mind when hearing children with disabilities.
Thus, this cultural, communal, and societal stigma around disabilities created a situation for parents to make difficult decisions. Negative parental attitudes lead families to hide their children or keep them isolated from their communities. This, in turn denies them access to accession and social interaction. However, on the flip side, if parents do accept social responsibility, mothers are often blamed and expected to assume all responsibility. Also, if father do accept their child, they often experience societal discrimination.
Interwined with the societal/cultural/communal stigmas of disabilities are other barriers to education as well. The lack of access to physical environment, lack of communication, lack of trained teachers all also percent children with disabilities to access their right to education (World Bank). However, the biggest barrier to education is the lack of reliable and available data on the number of children with disabilities. The impact of planning teachers, educational resources, access to buildings and information, and long distances to schools all cannot be done efficiently without the correct information.
Thus, for children with disabilities in Africa, the hope for education is dim:
Statistics according to UNESCO:
An estimated 76 percent of children with disabilities in Sierra Leone are out of school.Out of 30 million school-aged children in Ethiopia, less than 1 percent of children with disabilities have access to education.
In Central African Republic, 67 percent of children with disabilities aged 6-14 are not attending any form of schooling.
In Malawi, Tanzania and Burkina Faso, children with disabilities are two or three times more likely to be out of school than children without disabilities.
In Uganda, in 2008, children with disabilities represented only 0.023 percent of the general primary school population.
Quotations revolving the situation in Africa (African Report on Children with Disability)
“The parents’ attitude matters a lot – there will be children whose parents will not send them to school because of attitude – the stigma of having a child with a disability”. Aychesh Molla, Ethiopian Center for Disability and Development | Addis Ababa, Ethiopia“The male parents are a problem. Once you have a child with a disability, that child belongs to the mother only. You, the father, did not take part in the creation of that child. Everything remains on the mother’s side. The family on the father’s side, they are also washing their hands of any responsibility and saying ‘this is not our child’.” Astrida Kunda, Zambia Association of Parents of Children with Disabilities | Lusaka, Zambia
“It’s difficult to hear from your peers that you are not a man because you fathered a disabled child.” Dolorence Were Uganda Society for Disabled Children | Kampala, Uganda