ADDC Practitioners Interest Group
25th May 2011
Inclusive Education –
a Case Study from Samoa
Sally Baker
[email protected]
CBM-Nossal Partnership for
Disability Inclusive Development
Samoa Inclusive Education
Demonstration Program
• 5 year AusAIDfunded program
• Funds existing
education
providers to scale
up / shift to
Inclusive
Education
practice
Photo: Sally Baker
Samoa Inclusive Education
Demonstration Program
•
Examples of supported activities:
• Early intervention services to support identification and enrolment
of children with disabilities
• Specialist services to support participation in mainstream
education, including:
• Sign language classes for children with hearing impairment,
their families and teachers from mainstream schools
• Braille classes for children with vision impairment, and
production of Braille teaching and learning resources
• Small grants to support the initiatives of mainstream schools to
include children with disabilities
• Local Inclusive Education Advisor within the Ministry of Education,
with availability of technical support, to develop policy
• Research projects, to generate data
• Awareness raising regarding rights to education
Samoa Inclusive Education
Demonstration Program
•
Lessons learned and ways forward:
• For sustainable change, implementation must be aligned with MoE
systems, thus coordination must sit with the MoE:
• Advisory Committee, made up of Govt and Non-Govt
stakeholders, chaired by Govt
• MoE has financial responsibility and accountability for program
• Dedicated Inclusive Education Advisor within MoE
• Development of an IE policy, lead by MoE
• Efforts to include children with disabilities in school cannot
succeed without challenging negative community attitudes –
awareness raising is essential
• The voices of people with disabilities themselves must be heard
through the implementation and M&E process, thus DPO
representation in the Advisory committee at minimum, but also
other aspects of implementation, is essential