Advancing Disability-Inclusive Education: From Commitment to Transformation (COSP19 Side Event)

I Good afternoon, everybody.
Thank you so much for being here.
We're going to start.
It's a pleasure, it's an honor to be here.
Hello to everyone, participants, speakers, distinguished guests, Your Excellencies.
I invite you to kindly take your seats.
It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you joining us here today in the room and online as the event is webcasted as well.
I have the extreme pleasure of moderating this event.
I'm Mark Soberan, the Chief Executive Officer of the High Institute for Psychomotor Therapy Rehabilitation and President of the Foundation for Research in Psychomotor Therapy and lifestyle diseases, which operates under the ages of the Fation de France, the largest philanthropic organization in France.
It is a deep pleasure to welcome you to this event on inclusive education, which will focus on the concrete actions needed to move from commitments to initiatives that can truly transform education systems worldwide.
This week, as you all know obviously, the UN is hosting the 19th session of the CSP Convention of state parties to the Conference of State parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Once again, the UN has become a hub for champions of inclusion, bringing together voices from across the globe who are advocating for the rights of persons with disabilities.
Our event today reflects the spirit We are honored to hear from a diverse group of speakers representing governments, intergovernmental organization, including UNESCO, civil society, practitioners, youth, and global financing mechanisms.
Their presence demonstrates shared political will to join forces, advance the rights of learners with disabilities, and ensure that they have equitable access to education and are fully empowered to learn, thrive, and contribute to society.
I'm confident that today's discussion will deepen our understanding of why inclusive education is absolutely essential, what actions are required to achieve it, and how we can move forward through partnerships and coordinated efforts.
The event will be structured in two parts.
First, a brief opening segments with three remarks from our sponsoring partners, followed by an interactive panel discussion with experts.
Let me now turn to our first speaker, doctor Michael Mone, Chief Executive Officer of Kenya's National Council on Persons with Disability.
In the UN, Kenya is leading a group of 40 member states, a group of Friends for Education and lifelong learning.
This group champions advocacy and outreach on the global commitments on education.
Doctor Mone, you have the floor to deliver your opening remarks and to share Kenya's perspective on advancing inclusive education.
Thank you, moderator.
Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It is a true privilege to take part in this meeting on behalf of Kenya as the chair of the group of Friends for Education and lifelong learning here in New York.
Allow me at the outset to thank our co organizers, UNESCO, Rehabilitation International, the Global Partnership for Education, and all partners here today for convening with us this timely discussion on advancing disability inclusive education.
This gathering is especially relevant at this moment when state parties and all stakeholders continue to reflect on two decades of implementation on the Convention on the Rights of persons with disabilities.
Among the core principles of the convention is equality of opportunity, the notion that all people, including persons with disabilities, deserve a fair chance at treating their full potential.
Kenya is firmly convinced that education is one of the greatest multipliers of opportunity, making access to inclusive and equitable quality education a prerequisite to complete fulfillment of the CAPD.
Unfortunately, For millions of children and young people with disabilities around the world, access to education remains unequal and meaningful participation in learning is yet an unfinished agenda.
The challenge before us is therefore not only to expand access, but to transform education systems so that inclusion is embedded by design rather than treated as an exception.
In Kenya, we continue to take important steps towards this objective.
Our constitution guarantees the right to education for all and through the national transition to a new competency based curriculum, we seek to promote learner centered approaches that respond to diverse needs and abilities.
These efforts are bolstered by the Persons with Disabilities Act of 2025 and the accompanying persons with disabilities national policy of 2024.
We are actively expanding support for special needs and inclusive education, strengthening specialized teacher training, and increasing efforts to improve accessibility in learning environments.
Kenyard recognizes that barriers faced by learners with disabilities often extend beyond the classroom and that coordinated action across sectors is needed to respond effectively to the hidden cause of disability.
A key example of this intervention from our context is the Star W, which mean prosperity scholarship program through which more than 4,000 learners with disabilities or whose parents live with disabilities receive direct financial assistance to keep them in school.
This program also includes a dedicated education and mentorship element which provides specialized support in a manner that actively responds to the lived realities of persons affected by disabilities.
At the same time, our experience reminds us that significant challenges remain resource constraints, shortages of specialized support services, gaps in assistive technologies, and disparities between urban and rural areas continue to affect outcomes.
Kenya is aware that meaningful inclusion requires sustained political commitment, adequate financing, and system wide reforms that address policy, infrastructure, teacher preparedness, and social attitudes.
To achieve this, we must continue to strengthen cooperation, share evidence, and good practices, and support country led efforts that can be scaled and sustained.
Governments, multilateral organizations, and civil society, including Organization of persons with disabilities, all bring essential expertise and leadership.
For this reason, We see the deliberation at this side event as an important platform for identifying concrete pathways from commitment to transformation.
We look forward to hearing and learning from all of you.
Ladies and gentlemen, it remains integral to remember that the ultimate measure of our success is not the number of policies we adopt, but whether children and young people with disabilities are learning, participating, and realizing their aspiration alongside their peers.
Thank you.
Thank you very much and congratulations to everything Kenya is doing and the approach is extremely valuable for the rest of the world.
We now welcome Elliot Minchinberg, director of the UNSCO New York Office and representative to the UN in New York for his opening remarks.
Thank you very much, Mark.
Doctor Monene, Professor Guten Brunner, distinguished panelists, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of UNESCO, I would like to thank you for joining us in person and online for this important conversation.
Today, an estimated 1 billion people worldwide live with disabilities, including hundreds of millions of children.
As we mark the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, we are reminded that progress, while real, remains uneven and far from sufficient.
Encouragingly, we have seen important step forward, including a growing commitment to inclusive approaches within mainstream education systems.
As of last year, more than a third of countries have adopted policies aimed at fostering inclusion for all learners.
However, and as was mentioned by the previous speaker, placement alone does not ensure participation or belonging.
Integrating students with disabilities into mainstream school settings is a critical starting point, but it does not guarantee meaningful inclusion.
Without appropriate support, many learners remain on the margins within the classroom itself.
As a consequence, exclusion persists in multiple forms.
Children with disabilities are still significantly underrepresented in early childhood education, limiting opportunities at the pivotal stage of development.
They also face higher risk of bullying, including in digital spaces.
Let us be clear.
These challenges do not stem from the learners themselves.
They arise from systemic gaps and system can and must be transformed.
This is why inclusive education cannot be approached as a peripheral issue.
It is central to achieving equitable and sustainable development.
At UNESCO, disability inclusion is an integral component of our broader commitment to inclusive and equitable quality education across all levels from early childhood to lifelong learning.
The organization's recently adopted disability inclusion Strategy 2026 2029 provides a comprehensive institutional framework to guide this effort, ensuring coherence and actions across sectors.
We also support practical transformation on the ground.
For example, across Africa, UNESCO supports countries to strengthen inclusive education systems through systems designed approaches, disability inclusive sector planning, regional capacity development initiatives, and community of practice.
Ladies and gentlemen, inclusion is not achieved through commitments alone.
It requires sustained action.
First and foremost, investing in well trained, supported, and empowered teachers.
Teachers are at the forefront of the provision of inclusive education.
Secondly, ensuring accessibility across learning environments.
Third, designing flexible curricula that value different ways of learning and encourage creativity.
Four, promoting digital inclusion.
And last but not least, securing sustainable financing.
Because inclusion must truly mean everyone without exception.
Ultimately, learning diversity is not an obstacle to overcome.
It is a source of strength that enriches our societies and strengthens our education systems.
Thank you.
We can see that UNESCO is definitely paving the way with a very structured way of approaching disability inclusion and education with very concrete actions and although there's a lot still to be done, working all together, we can work towards our common goals.
For our last opening remarks, I'd like to welcome doctor Christopher Gutenberner, President of Rehabilitation International.
Mr.
Chair, Excellencies, leaders and delegates.
Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I would like to thank the co organizers and co sponsors of this meeting, especially, of course, Kenya and UNESCO.
Rehabilitation International is a global advocate for the rights of persons with disability, including rehabilitation and inclusion strategies.
From our perspective, it is important to understand that education is a core element for independent living and successful inclusion in society.
Of course, this is in particular for gaining a job, earning money, and being fully accepted as a member of society.
But we also know that education is an important factor for good health, participation in leisure, sports, arts, science, social and political life.
It helps to realize individual rights and activity, independent living and realization of human rights.
The principles of the Article 24 of the UNCRPD are not new and together with the ratification of the UNCRPD, they have been adopted by the vast majority of countries all around the world.
Good practice models exist.
Criteria of universal design in education and pedagogic concepts have been developed.
However, we still can observe huge gaps in the implementation of inclusive education.
For me and for my organization, it is important to underline that inclusive education does not end with the last day visiting a school.
It must be continued in higher education institutions such as universities and other professional training institutions.
Here, deficits are even larger.
Connected to this, the lack of inclusive professional profiles are highly relevant factor for exclusion of persons with disability to achieve professional skills.
Rehabilitation International, thanks to all presenters, panelists, and moderator, of course, the sign language interpreters for being here today, and I wish this event good success and hope that it will foster a good and effective collaboration to achieve our agreed goals.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I think we all agree that education is absolutely central in including people with disabilities in societies and henceforth, making education itself inclusive is absolutely crucial to reach the UNCRPD goals.
Of course, implementation is what we need to focus on to make it real, to make it happen in the field.
Thank you very much all for your opening remarks.
I now turn to our panelists.
Panel today will explore what it takes to transform education systems so that inclusion is built into policies, financing, teaching and learning from the outset.
We will hear perspectives from global research, national reform efforts, implementation partners, youth advocates, and education financing institutions.
I am pleased to invite our first panelist, Her Excellency Clara Marquez Mendez, Secretary of State for Social Action and Inclusion of Portugal.
Portugal has advanced a whole system approach to inclusive education, offering useful lessons on turning policy commitments into practice.
Portugal has been recognized for advancing a whole system approach to inclusive education.
What lessons from Portugal's approach reform journey could we use for other countries to move beyond access and towards education systems that are genuinely inclusive by design.
I invite you to listen to the translation as our speaker will speak in Portuguese.
Yours.
Thank you very much, Mr.
Moderator, Excellencies, Distinguished participants.
Portugal congratulates US and Kenya for organizing this event and is pleased to share Portugal's experience and plans in this area of inclusive education.
Inclusive education is central to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Over the past few years, Portugal has been consolidating a path of commitment and is now focused on a new phase, the structural transformation of the education system.
The Portuguese experience shows that the main challenge is no longer merely to guarantee access to school, but to ensure quality, inclusive educational pathways oriented towards adult life and full participation in society.
In this regard, the strategy for the rights of persons with disabilities 2026 2030 approved by the national government places education as a central priority.
Education is recognized as a lifelong right and a decisive factor in social and economic inclusion.
The picture is clear.
Higher dropout rates persist amongst students with disabilities, along with challenges in the transitioning to higher education and the labor market.
To address these challenges, Portugal has been making progress along three lines of transformation.
First, the consolidation of an inclusive education model at all levels of schooling.
Accessibility and inclusion plans are being implemented in all schools, combining pedagogical, curricular, and physical adaptations with strong involvement of families and support services.
Second, the reinforcement of the quality and continuity of learning.
Of particular note is the widespread adoption of individual transition plans for all students with disabilities, ensuring coherent pathways after compulsory schooling, as well as the reduction of the early school leaving rate with concrete targets and continuous monitoring.
Third, a commitment to digital accessibility and inclusive higher education.
Particle is incorporating universal design principles into learning and ensuring accessible digital platforms in higher education institutions, aligning education with the digital transition, and the goal of a more inclusive society.
At the same time, we are investing heavily in the training of teachers and education system professionals, making the inclusion of content on disability and inclusive pedagogy mandatory in initial and continuing education.
This approach reflects the paradigm shift.
We have moved from adaptive responses to a universal design approach, where systems are designed from the outset for everyone, school for everyone.
But transformation demands more.
It requires integrated governance, quality data, and the active participation of persons with disabilities themselves in shaping educational policies.
That's why Portugal is also strengthening monitoring mechanisms.
And coordination between education, employment, and social inclusion, ensuring that education is not an end in itself, but an effective gateway to autonomy and citizenship.
In short, the Portuguese experience shows that moving from intention to transformation requires ensuring policy coherence, sustained investment, and a human rights based approach.
That is the commitment we renew today.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Your Excellency, for your very inspiring work.
I think the end line indeed is to say that we need to measure results.
We need to monitor the results, and this comes in line perfectly well with our next speaker, doctor Prijshi.
She is a senior research and policy analyst with the Global Education monitoring Report at UNSCO.
She is the co author of the flagship Global Education Monitoring Reports.
Pa.
As countries approach the 2030 deadline while facing financial pressures and fragmentation in multilateral cooperation, what policies are countries adopting for disability inclusive education? Thank you so much, Mark.
Your Excellencies, organizers, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues, thank you very much for the opportunity to discuss some findings and perspectives from the UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report.
We have been monitoring education progress for nearly 25 years, as well as education's importance for people and planet.
The most recent flagship report focused on access and equity, analyzing progress since 2015.
I want to make two points on the bigger global picture.
More pessimistic point is this, countries will not achieve access to education for all by 2030.
In 2024, 27,273 million children, adolescents and youth are excluded from education worldwide.
Positive reflection on the same point is that not meeting these global goals does not mean that the global education agenda has failed.
It is also a reflection of the growing ambition of the education expansion in the systems since 1990 and countries have tried to transform their policy approaches to education access, equity, and inclusion.
With respect to inclusion, UNESCO strategic efforts were clearly highlighted by Director Mention Burke.
The EM report had a 2020 flagship report on inclusion and education.
We subtitled it all means all, making a clear point that learner diversity must be celebrated and included.
The EM report's peer team and website has mapped national laws and policies related to inclusion, and we can see in this graph that countries are making inclusion a legislative priority.
The share of countries with inclusive education laws has risen from 1% to 24% in the last 20 years.
When specifically focusing on inclusion of children with disability, countries are increasingly introducing legislation to facilitate the inclusion in mainstream schools.
The peer team analysis has categorized country legislation ranging from special settings to fully inclusive settings in dark blue.
As we can see again from this graph, the share of countries where legislation permits segregation is now only 9%, while the share of those supporting inclusion is at 29%.
To highlight one key issue, we are the global monitoring Report.
Data are very limited and we still cannot show changes in the education status of learners with disability over time.
Comparisons are complicated by differences in definitions, categorizations, and identification rates.
When we look at some of the countries with the most robust data, we find that inclusion is advancing but unevenly.
This first graph shows analysis from a database from Europe, the Caucuses in Central Asia, and you can see here that in almost all countries, students with disabilities enrollment has increased in mainstream schools.
But at the same time, in some countries, both mainstream and special school enrollment is expanding, which suggests parallel expansion.
I wanted to just spend a little bit of time on Armenia.
Is a case of progress we have highlighted in our last report.
It's shown in orange in the second graph.
The number of children in special schools reduced by 75% 2015-2023.
The number of children with disabilities in mainstream schools more than doubled.
How was this achieved? Armenia embarked on structural reforms, embracing inclusive education as a way to move forward beyond the medical model of disability.
Key laws were passed.
The 2005 law on education of persons with special education needs introduced the concept of inclusive education.
And support for children with disabilities at the national, regional and school levels.
The 2021 law on the rights of persons with disabilities and the Law on functional assessment promoted accessibility, social inclusion, and psychosocial assessment.
Existing special schools were gradually converted into pedagogical psychological support services offering child and family support.
The processes of identification and assessment were reformed to better target children with disabilities and civil society and NGOs were central partners with the Ministry of Education, science, culture, and ports.
I feel this example of Armenia, the previous example shared on Kenya and Portugal, and our much broader global analysis show us that to achieve inclusion, we need many dimensions of consistent systemic change, which include targeted and inclusive financing, improved sharing of resource centers and teachers, multi stakeholder and multi sectoral corporation, investments in meaningful consultations with communities, and emphasis on universal design, and of course, empowerment of the education workforce.
I would like to conclude by saying that in these times of financial uncertainty, yet again, basing our decisions on sound data, evidence, and analysis are crucial.
We need better data, of course, at the individual level, but also at the policy level.
The systematic documentation of national approaches is essential for policy learning, and we hope that these resources developed on inclusion policy are instructive for national and international dialogues.
Thank you so much.
Thank you very much.
Even though the 2030 goals may not be achieved, it's important to acknowledge that there's been significant improvements, which is very encouraging and we of course, still need to continue these efforts to achieve future goals.
But how to do it, what examples can we bring to have a systematic approach? Well, our next speaker, Tam is the Vice Chair of the Rehabilitation International Education Commission and long standing advocate for inclusive education and disability rights.
She currently leads international welfare initiatives and supports the development of Rehabilitation global framework for inclusive education.
Rehabilitation International is developing a global symbol and accreditation framework for inclusive education institutions.
How can practical tools such as universal design standards and accreditation systems help move countries from policy commitments to measurable implementations? Ladies and gentlemen and dear audience, we know that there are estimated 240 million young people with disability worldwide.
Like all children, children with disability have ambition and dreams for the future.
Like all children, they need quality education to develop their skills and realize their full potential.
We also know that despite good intention in international convention and national policy, Good planning both on national and local level in countries result from research study indicate that the educational system's ability to meet diversity in the pupils group and provide relevant educational outcome for students is not satisfied.
We also know that targeted work is required to achieve real inclusion.
This involves both the school leaders attitude to inclusion and giving teacher tips and knowledge about methods, organization, and learning resources.
Some action had to be handled on national level and some action had to be done on the school level.
This knowledge is the background for Education Commission in Rehabilitation international work.
The last year, we have focused on the situation for these young people with a disability.
We have looked for a possibility to make the intention about inclusive education to be a reality.
In our opinion, new action must be taken.
Competence to supporting the school in developing and implement an inclusive culture has been the focus in our two project.
Two project, I will present for you.
The first one is called Universal Deciding kindergarten and School guides and Universal Tools.
Here we have developed a practical toolbox for what is needed to do for persons with disability with different needs.
But we soon realized that guidance about inclusive education was not enough.
We continue the work focusing on the difficult implementation process and the support to the leadership.
This is the essence in the second project called a global symbol for inclusive education.
Here we are getting a symbol for good work via motivation, a visible symbol that can acknowledge the work for making the institution more inclusive.
In this project, we focus on quality building.
To build quality, you must involve persons and system who are affected by the issue.
User involvement has been a central principle in the project.
We have also made criteria for the quality process and made forms for use in the quality evaluation.
This is elements you can find in our very practical handbook produced in the project.
To help the leadership in the process, we have made a list of important step in the implementation process and culture and attitudes are one of the ten steps described.
As a part of the project, we invited the designer to a competition for making the new global symbol for inclusive education.
And the intrusion symbol makes awareness to different groups of disability.
Information about hope to get the symbol will be given on the RIs website, RI Global.
You can find it there.
We don't know if making a global symbol for inclusive education is the best solution for making education inclusive.
But in our opinion, it's important to explore new perspective on how to do and what to do.
We need to inspire the sector and the leadership in the institution to make progress from bringing the ID into practice.
We hope that our support from the projects will reach out and give inspiration to countries all over the world.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tuna.
Having implementation frameworks and tools is extremely important, but making them visible is also something crucial in order to motivate people, but also create something that's reflectible.
Our next panelist is Eta Brooks, a member of the UNESCO SDG four Youth and Student Network and founder of GS Guidance in Liberia.
Her work focuses on education equity, youth empowerment, and using research and technology to advance inclusion.
Eta, you have worked on AI and literacy barriers affecting immigrant parents of children with disabilities.
From a youth and research perspective, how can AI and technology strengthen inclusion without creating new inequalities for learners with disabilities? Thank you very much.
That is such a very meaningful question.
To start, I firstly want to make this statement that AI has the potential to advance disability inclusive education, but it can also deepen equality if we do not design them intentionally.
AI is built on the pattern that already exists in our world and our world is already divided and unequal.
So in order for us to, um, In order for us to advance disability inclusion, we have to be intentional about making these tools inclusive.
Next.
First, I want us to look at how does this look like? How does using AI to help improve disability inclusion and if we're not intentional on how we build this tool, how it affects, how it creates new inequality.
One example that I have here when we did our project, is called the AI EP project that was just mentioned.
There was a feature that is from speech to text.
This from speech to text feature is very important, is very meaningful for our audience.
However, this speech to text feature, it helps students who may have hearing impediment, but also they are also on people with disability who have other multiple types of disability.
And in order to do in order to work on this project, it's very important to consider all aspects of inclusion.
We know that parents who use the tool, they are not familiar with using technology.
We have to make sure the uploading of the tool is something that is accessible to them.
We have to make sure English is not their first language.
We have to make sure there is translation tools, and so we have to consider all aspects.
Next, please.
Another example from a data perspective is the data that we use to build these tools.
We know that students with a disability, most of the information that is out there, the data that we collect and the data that AR draws a solution form, it mostly does not include students with disability.
And if we create a tool, for example, if we create a or educational tool that helps students learn better, and we do not include data from all students, including students with disability.
This tool is going to misinterpret the educational learning of students with disability.
They're going to maybe interpret them as experiencing challenges.
It's going to misinterpret those, and this is because we do not draw data from their lived experiences.
We have to include all of this data.
Um, in order for us to really advance disability students with disability inclusion, we are creating new form of exclusion, and first, we should call design AI tools for learners with disability, not just for them.
We should ensure accessibility is built in from the start and it should not be added later.
We should design tools that work across different contexts, including low resources settings, which will provide training for teachers and schools to support inclusive use of AI, and we will also create feedback system where learners with disability can continuously improve the tools.
Next.
Thank you very much.
What has been said several times during many side events is that AI is, of course, a huge opportunity but carries a lot of risks and one of them is that it will use data that if itself is not inclusive and is biased, well then it will be pointless to build something on this biased data.
It will be very important to have AI datasets that are non biased and that is part of how we will build inclusive design for AI technologies.
Our last but not least speaker is Elizabeth Cafferty, the Global Partnership for Education's UN representative, leading the GP's engagement with the United Nations and global policy processes.
With extensive experience across the UN system, she has worked to advance effective partnerships, accountability, and inclusive development.
Liz financing, as it's been said many times, remains one of the major barriers to implementation.
How is the global Partnership for Education strengthening disability inclusion through its financing and partnership model, and what more is needed from governments and donors to ensure that no learner is left behind? Thank you to the co organizers for the invitation to speak today, particularly to our good friends and partners, Kenya and UNESCO.
For those of you who don't know, GPE, GPE is both a fund and a partnership.
It has a multi billion dollar grant portfolio that helps children in lower income countries through funding, but also by bringing together ministries of education, ministries of Finance, development partners, and civil society.
We work to reduce fragmentation and to align diversified financing behind country led or education priorities.
So I get to speak last and of course, I talk about money, which we haven't spoken about yet, which is critical to this work.
None of you will be surprised that I'm going to say inadequate financing remains a huge barrier to inclusive education.
Low income countries only spend about $55 per child each year on education, which is clearly not enough to enable disability inclusive education, nor is it sufficient to provide reasonable accommodation for girls and boys with disabilities.
And we know that this is important because inclusive education systems are critical for not just children with disabilities, but they benefit all children.
There's actually also a financial cost to exclusion.
If persons with disabilities are excluded from education and the labor market, countries have a loss of GDP that ranges 1-7%.
So what is GPE doing? GPE believes that everything starts with a country led approach and with domestic financing.
We've been working to incentivize the governments that we work with to increase domestic financing for education.
We support them to identify efficiencies in the current funding that they are allocating, and we work with them to help them to spend their resources more equitably and effectively and progressively allocate domestic financing to the most marginalized children.
We've also been working with our donor government partners and with the private sector.
I said, diversified financing is key.
We have to ensure that there are still external resources coming and that they are aligned with national systems, national reform plans, and domestic resource investments.
GPE partner countries, including Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Kenya, have introduced equity based formulas to allocate grants and subsidies to schools and decentralized levels of education.
Just one quick example, Tanzania has introduced results based financing to incentivize inclusion.
They have a disbursement linked indicator that tracks schools inclusion assessments completed by local governments and to reward districts that improve on equity and inclusion targets.
And what is GPE itself doing? I've talked about what we've told everyone else to do.
GPEs board has recognized that more needs to be done by GPE itself.
We have a new five year strategic plan, GPE 2030, and in that plan, disability inclusive education is now a priority, and that's in line with the commitments that we've made at the Global Disability Summit.
So we are going to do more to monitor progress towards the systems level results in the implementation of inclusive priority reforms.
We are introducing a disability inclusion marker that's aligned with the OECD DAC, and that's for our grants so that we can strengthen monitoring of the volume of funding that's supporting disability inclusion.
We will also continue to disseminate evidence and knowledge about what works in inclusive education, offer capacity building for inclusive policy development, planning and implementation.
Also, we're going to continue to facilitate inclusive dialogue and meaningful engagement of persons with disabilities and their representative organizations so that they can also influence education sector policy making.
You also asked me what more is needed.
We're really looking for governments and donors to step up their efforts on disability inclusion.
We need more political will and the political will is necessary to ensure that this is not just as you've heard, nice to have, but it's integral to building strong, more equitable and effective education systems.
Finally, I said we are a partnership.
We aim for strong coordination and partnerships between all actors and all sectors, and we think that this is crucial to unlock the needed resources and as I said at the beginning, ensure alignment between everyone on inclusive systems change.
We really believe that inclusion is a smart use of limited funds, and we're committed to working with all our partners to realize this.
Thank you.
Thank you, Liz.
It's very inspiring and money is usually a core issue, but it's also about using the money properly, especially when it's limited.
For that, we also need measurement tools and indicators.
Thank you for everything that you've been working on and that the partnership has been working on.
Okay.
Um, so we can now we still have a bit of time for questions from the audience if some of you want to ask our speakers questions, and I see there's already a question over there.
So please just present yourself and ask your question to either the whole panel or a dedicated person.
Thank you very much.
My name is Mars Quinlan.
I'm a member of the Irish Parliament and I chair what we call our National Parliament, the two houses of that, our disability Matters Committee.
I just want to thank everybody who made the presentations here.
It's very, very useful.
We just concluded ourselves a whole program of inclusive education in Ireland, we've struggled to do that.
We have a system called what we call Assessment of Needs.
Um, whereby we define or we go through what disability person will have, but that system has become overwhelmed.
So a huge number of people on the witness list.
It's actually proven to be counterperproductive.
So what we're trying to do is get government to listen to what we said, what the experts told us, what people told us, and what we heard from the panel here today is that the key is education, to get people into schools in mainstream where possible.
I just want to put that on the record there from ourselves from Ireland.
So thank you very much for Thanks everyone for this amazing session.
I just have three quick points which I think it'll be amazing for us to maybe later on or look deeply into.
My name is an Mussoi.
I am the head of Social empowerment and Development Programs in the Ministry of Family of United Arab Emirates.
The first thing I would want to say is when it comes to the government funding or working on inclusive education, one thing that we've tried in the United Arab Emirates that really worked in the favor of a children with disabilities is when government started working together.
We started to send our own therapists, especially therapists that are hard to recruit, hard to find in the market, into the education system.
We've started cooperating with the Ministry of Education to provide therapeutic services within the natural environment of the children, which also optimized the budget that we have and the spending that the government is putting into inclusive education and is resulting in amazing results, especially that children are receiving the therapeutic services that they need within their natural environment and within school.
The second thing I want to point out is that we need to really pay attention, and this is something else that we're looking at in the UAE, is we need to pay attention to the mental well being of parents and caregivers as well.
Yes, upskilling them is really important, giving them the acquired skills are really important, but we need to also think about the mental well being of parents and the caregivers and that includes the inclusion staff.
Finally, when it comes to AI, AI is an amazing thing that we can utilize to support all aspects of inclusion within society.
But what we need to really pay attention to is that we should not bend AI to reproduce the rigid systems that we already have, the bureaucratic systems that we already have.
We need to have a AI native tools.
We need to have proactive AI tools that will predict the needs of person A or student A, not only now, but also in the future.
We need tools that can be proactive, that can forecast the government's future needs, the government spending, the person's needs, the family's needs.
This is something that we're really trying to push for in the UAE and hopefully later on we would love to share that with the rest of the room here.
Thank you so much for giving me the time.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, you can go ahead.
Colonel Maggot.
My name is Ru Omar.
I'm a parliamentarian from Ireland.
I'm also on the Disability matters committee with Morris.
Look, I think there's going to be a fair amount of agreement, I imagine most people that have walked into this room like the idea of mainstreaming and inclusive education.
Morris already spoke about the issue that we have in relation to parents as regards the issue around the assessment system, getting an assessment, and then ensuring that you have the therapies.
Look, the logical thing is whether you're talking about an early childcare setting or a school is you put the services where the need is and then assessment isn't something that happens once, it happens constantly and you provide the child with whatever issues that whatever resources are required.
There may be very little if that early intervention happens.
Because as a politician, I deal with a hell of a lot of parents who get utterly frustrated, who end up taking legal cases.
Even if they get a place within a school, it can depend on the teacher.
Or the principal on whether that child stays in that school.
I could also use the example of my own son.
I think I've said it previously.
His name is Turlock.
He's now 17 and he is really happy and learning within a secondary school setting.
But there would have been issues over the years and we may have, as parents got a better bang for book, I used that term earlier today.
On the basis of me being an elected rep and also having a relationship with these schools even going back through family members.
But the fact is he stayed in school through the meltdowns and all the issues that he would have had through his autism and his ADHD, but he got to a different point.
He learned strategies, they learned strategies.
You know, and therefore, if we could do in school therapies properly and across the board, and it's doing it properly.
And I'm not saying there won't be a need for another bespoke solution for those that may have even more severe and challenging needs, but that's where we have to get and without doubt the most I know at times when we would have got speech and language therapy that you would have one week I would have gone, then my wife would have gone.
You would have had great intentions of what you were going to do with the photocopied notes and then you'd lose them or you wouldn't have them.
Whereas if this was done in a school setting involving parents and you had assistive technologies to back it up, including for the child themselves, for the school staff, the special needs assistant, the teachers, the principal, whoever else, it would be a win across the board and that's where we have to get to Gram Guiler, thank you very much for all of this.
Thank you very much.
You have a question.
Can you Let me go on the limp.
I don't know, my sister, you sound like you're a Liberian.
I'm not sure.
Oh, no, I think you turn it on.
This question may be a bit for you because after 35 years, I opportunity to start going back to Liberia and seeing some of the deficiency, especially in the educational system.
One of the things that I realized and how can we get the parents involved.
I know a lot of people are talking about the parents, especially in Liberia, because when a child is exhibiting the learning disability, the classification is not often for educational help.
It's either maybe they're stupid, they're dumb, or they're possessed or something.
That challenge is there even from home.
Now when you enter into the school system, then the teachers are not trained adequately.
Even if you're bringing these programs globally, the adequacy of the teachers who are supposed to streamline or help these children when they're not there.
How do we begin to implement some programs to educate not only the students and be concerned about them, but concern about the community at large, to also be educated on how to identify when a child has a learning disability? Definitely, that that is a very significant aspect of, you know, supporting students with disabilities, especially the said in Liberia, most of, you know, the activities of students, the parents are not involved.
The only time that the parents are involved may be, you know, having PDA meetings for parents or maybe graduation, but the parent are not actively involved in their children educational decision.
So, it's very important that the parents get involved, like you said, and the ways that we can, you know, involve parents is to create an al system, not just not just having a conversation around it, not just having like a one day meeting, but to create a system like a process within that.
So a system that involves, you know, we have this is this is an evaluation that students have to take maybe at the beginning of the school year, and the parents have to participate in the evaluation.
The parents should be included in the evaluation.
And every aspect of the parents every aspect of that child learning throughout the school year, it should also include the parents, you know, the parents input, the report to the parents about students who if they have students with disability.
And there's also in schools, especially in Liberia, they are not a lot of diagnosis with students experiencing those, situations, and so it's very important to always include parents who make it very systemic.
Are you from Liberia? Yes.
Oh.
Oh, wonderful.
E.
Evangelist No António Adam, CEO of O Family Ministry, retired family Service specialist and a teacher educator.
What I'm hearing is that if the parents are not involved in the education of their children in Liberia, maybe some countries, it means that there's a problem with implementation.
Because they are the parents and they are supposed to be involved.
So the Board of Education or primary Education Board, I don't know what is called in some of the countries have to ensure that they light in the parents because a lot of them are not educated, but they are interested in the education of their children.
They must be involved in the planning and every decision that relates to their children.
I think that's what we have to do.
Everything you have stated they are all very good.
And before we came here, I was asking the doctor from Kenya.
I wanted to know the involvement of my country, Nigeria, if Nigeria is involved in this.
He told me that a lot of countries are, but too many countries that are really that organized this.
So I'm going to leave here with something to find out what we are actually doing because the parents should be involved.
Thank you.
Yes, absolutely.
What I think is very interesting here through these different questions and testimonies from different countries is that no one country has all the answers and that we need to share these initiatives, find a way to pool best practices in order to learn from initiatives around the world, what has worked, also what has failed, and there's probably something very important to build there.
Is there maybe one final question before I ask my final question, which is a Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I'm from civil society from Korea.
I have one big question with two points.
The question is, what would be the measurable achievement, the outcome of inclusive education? Because if we want financial support and budget, we need to convince the donors.
One point is If the students with disabilities goes to mainstream school rather than special school more than before, can it be the achievement? Because I have seen many children with disabilities who just existing in mainstream classroom and without any support.
I'm not sure if the children with disability just went to mainstream school rather than special school can be the achievement without any support.
And the second point is when we think about the quality of inclusive education, not to just existing in mainstreams.
Also, what would be the measurable achievement, can we increase the hiring rate or test score of the children with disabilities by improving the quality of inclusive education? What kind of measurable numbers can be the um convincing point to donors when even the children without disabilities cannot go to the school, they cannot graduate properly, when they even cannot be hired in the society, then how can we convince the donors with this quality of inclusive education, what achievement, especially when it comes to developmental disabilities? That's my question, what would be the measurable achievements and outcome? I don't know Liz or Priya who wants to answer this difficult but extremely relevant question.
I think it's a tough one to answer because I feel like it's touching on many dimensions of the conversations we've had today, which is, education can only do so much within the system.
It has to be I feel like the answer always is, is the approach to inclusive education part of a bigger systemic strategy? I think that is the most important bit of this, because without that, none of this will be done, uh, in a meaningful way.
When you make the first point that is it just about having children in mainstream schools? It is certainly not.
The point is, it is one indication.
If you go from a special setting, a reduction from a special setting to more of an integrated setting or more of an inclusive setting, What it usually represents is a transition from a medical model of disability to one that is approaching things from a pedagogical psychological approach that is trying to address diverse learners needs.
At some level, indicators are a minimum baseline, a starting point.
I think it's the second point that you raise.
One part is that, there are some data that can be globally collected, which some of the efforts are ongoing on collecting that kind of data.
Uh, what percentage of students are actually able to study in inclusive, schools, which of course means that they also should be provided with comprehensive support.
It is not just about being in a mainstream school and then segregated or lacking support.
That is very much the point.
Of course, the panelists, as well as other speakers have said it here today.
P is just one part of the equation.
A lot has to do with what is then implemented.
And as a result, when you say that, it is, of course, about the financing system.
It is about the political will.
It is about community experiences and transformation that are linked to disability.
And I think all of that has to work together to then influence things like learning outcomes, but also life opportunity, as you were mentioning.
I think all kinds of indicators are in play, but I leave you with that and I think answering the question of what is convincing to donors may be someone else we'll have to tackle.
Thank you.
I'm going to take the easy way out on that one actually because what I had been thinking was, you know, my comments were really, really high level, but that's what GPE does.
I think we think it's really important to get structures in place so that we don't have a patchwork and that we want to get to a world where it isn't reliant upon the fact where your parent happens to have the connections and the education and the knowledge to be able to advocate and navigate these systems for you.
Thank you to everyone who is a parent or professional and who has spoken personally on these issues.
It's very easy in this building to depersonalize things and forget that these are, in this instance, children and girls and boys and teenagers, real people are affected by these issues.
My very close friends son is autistic and he's in high school now and she happens to be an autism expert.
Again, his experience as you were saying before, is a world and even in New York where we have so many resources, is a world of difference with a child whose parents does not have that.
That is the reality right now.
I think I You know, PREA does give us some hope by showing that even if it is quite slow, we are moving in the right direction, and I think that you know, these weeks at the UN and I've been to many of them, you know, can feel like maybe we're not achieving a lot, but actually in spaces like this, when we are like funders are sitting next to disability advocates sitting next to UN agencies and learning more about all of our approaches and our ways of working, I think that is and that is GPEs position, right? It is partnership.
It is understanding each other better, getting on the same page as we would say in the US, that's how we're going to make the change that we need.
So thank you.
Thank you very much, Liz.
We've spoken about a lot of different things.
It's a complex, complex question.
Of course, we talked about the importance of data.
That's a recurring topic, especially when it comes to AI, the importance of research and especially evidence based research, the importance of sharing or experiences, policy documentations, and best practices.
T of teachers was also a recurring theme as well as other stakeholders around children.
Creating visible logos for frameworks and tools in order to enforce better implementation, having inclusion by design, creating systems that are inclusive from the start by also including people that are affected in the policy making and the framework building.
Of course, money, but not just having money, using it properly with the right indicators.
Final question for the panel if you want to answer.
It's a tough one, it's complicated.
Whoever is up to the challenge can try to answer it.
Given everything we've spoken about, if there is one concrete action the international community should prioritize over the next five years to transform education systems to become truly disability inclusive by design, what would it be and why? I don't know if anyone wants to try to answer this question, but this can be our concluding statement.
I mean, I'll just jump in really quickly and say, I said money and I think it is critical.
But we also think data because we need to be able to see is the money achieving anything? We don't want to, we want to find out what works and if something doesn't work as much as sometimes we all have our pet programs, we shouldn't be funding them if that's not generating the outcomes we need, money and data.
Tuna.
I would like to say that support in the implementation process is very important and also building good quality both on national level, but most of all on the local level.
Does anyone else want to Yes, Grex and Z.
Thank you very much and thank you for your reflection and I really like this challenge.
I would say that it is very important above all, and it has been shared here today, strengthening of human resources qualifications so that we can have more personalized support for each student with disabilities.
Every student with disabilities have different needs, so we need personalized support together with the support of families.
That we can make education more inclusive.
In Portugal, we have been working together with all governmental areas to strengthen inclusive education.
All countries if all countries can strengthen this pillar, it will be very important.
Okay.
Um, I think we have been analyzing, like I said, education progress for over two decades.
We champion the use of the right mix of policies.
One single reform is not going to work.
I think we heard the whole range of data financing issues.
Maybe I just want to say that the process has to be owned at the national level.
It needs to be built on a long term vision, and a multisectoral approach, I think is absolutely essential, which I think it's very effective at the early intervention level as we were discussing earlier.
But I think the multi sectoral approach is the only way we can have disability inclusion throughout life.
Yeah.
I definitely agree with what everyone said, especially what she said about long term vision.
To add to that, I will say active participation from everyone that is affected by it.
This includes students, this include parents, this include policymakers, and all of everyone that is affected should have active participation, like partnership and working together to achieve.
Well, thank you very much.
Data, money, implementation tools, training, having a long term vision and involving all stakeholders.
It's a pretty big challenge.
We definitely all have a lot of work to do, but we need to do it together.
We have the same goals, and that's what's the most important.
Thank you very much to all the speakers, the panelists.
Thank you to the audience for your great questions.
It was a pleasure moderating for you today.
Thank you all very much and have a very nice evening.