The Commonwealth member governments and the Commonwealth Secretariat are committed to the achievement of the two education-related Millennium Development Goals of universal primary education for all and the elimination of gender disparities at all levels of education. The Commonwealth Secretariat is therefore striving to ensure that all children, regardless of their gender, age, socio-economic status, disability or ethnicity, have access to quality education. We aim to achieve this by working with Commonwealth governments as trusted partners to attain education of good quality.

Great efforts are being made to get all primary age children into school and to complete primary education as part of the Millennium Development Goals and Education for All (EFA). This has not included disabled children, especially in less developed countries. The first barrier arises from long-held ideas that locate the problem in the child and their impairment, rather than recognising that it is society’s own response to the impairment that needs to change. Negative attitudes based on traditional thinking still act as a big social barrier. In many parts of the developed North, segregation in separate special schools of pupils with special educational needs or poor attempts at integration have left disabled children and students not achieving their potential. The alternative is to engage in the transformational process in schools that is the development of inclusive education. Too often this approach has been generalised so that the transformations necessary to include disabled children and students with the full range of impairments, and to meet their access and support needs, have not been given sufficient weight. There are a growing number of examples that do include disabled children and students in education. However, the fundamental transformative thinking that is necessary to complete this process is often missing.

Considerable progress has been made in the last decade towards achieving Millennium Development Goal 2: ‘Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling’. In 2008, 52 million more children were enrolled in primary school than in 1999. In all, 696 million children were enrolled worldwide.

For thousands of years in every culture and society physical and mental differences have been ascribed special meaning. This was usually negative and often persists today, resulting in stigma, negative attitudes and stereotypes. People were thought to be disabled because they or their parents had done something wrong and because all-powerful gods, deities or fate had made them disabled (karma or sin). Disabled people were often subjected to inhuman treatment. Being seen as bringing shame on their families, they were locked away. Euthanasia was widely practised on babies born with significant impairments. Such children were often abandoned and had to rely on begging to survive.

UNESCO sees inclusive education as a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education. This involves changes in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common vision which covers all children within an appropriate age range. It embodies the conviction that it is the responsibility of the mainstream education system to educate all children.61 Inclusive education seeks to address the learning needs of all children, young people and adults, with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalisation and exclusion. Schools should accommodate all children, regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic or other impairments. They should provide for disabled and gifted children, street and working children, children from remote or nomadic populations, children from linguistic, ethnic or cultural minorities and children from other marginalised areas or groups.

In this chapter a range of the key players in the development of inclusive education at an international level are introduced, and their roles and perspectives are examined. Important here is the growing role of disabled people and their representative organisations. The International Disability Alliance and the Disability Rights Fund are very important. The new United Nations Multi-Donor Trust Fund, which will commence in early 2012, should give a real boost to capacity-building projects and the involvement of disabled people in implementing the UNCRPD.

A number of countries, such as India, South Africa, Lesotho, Uganda and the UK, and provinces that have responsibility for education policy, such as New Brunswick, Canada and Queensland, Australia, now have well-developed policies on inclusive education. Others, such as Pakistan, are only just developing policies. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh already have policies, but these appear to have little impact on the ground. Quite a few countries have policies that amount to integration, but not inclusion as defined here and in Article 24, for example Malaysia and Singapore.

UNESCO has provided useful guidance to support the development of inclusive education at regional and local level (Box 7.1). Its Open File on Inclusive Education is a compilation of strategies, which gives many examples of good practice from around the world. Starting with strategies for change, it describes how to initiate change, create new administrative structures and mobilise resources. It also provides support material for managers and administrators.

Examples of classroom and individual measures to accommodate disabled students vary considerably; some constitute integration, rather than inclusion. This chapter first examines the UNESCO publication, Embracing Diversity: Toolkit for Creating Inclusive Learning-Friendly Environments (Box 8.1), and then looks at perspectives for bringing equality into the primary classroom from two experienced practitioners (Box 8.2). It also examines the CSIE’s Index for Inclusion, getting school buildings right, and how to provide for deaf and deafblind children in poorer countries. It shows how sensory impairment can be accommodated at local level with examples from Samoa (Boxes 8.3 and 8.5), Kenya (Boxes 8.4 and 8.8), St Lucia (Box 8.6) and Bangladesh (Box 8.7). Singapore provides an example of a high school for those who fail their exams and how students can be turned around – this is not inclusive, but it is effective (Box 8.9). Two schools in Sri Lanka show that effectiveness depends on staff and management attitudes (Box 8.10). India has many different approaches (Boxes 8.11 and 8.12). South Africa furnishes examples of developing inclusion (Boxes 8.14, 8.16 and 8.17), while Namibia shows how with intervention, access and support a disabled student can achieve (Box 8.19). Swaziland (Box 8.13), St Lucia (Box 8.18) and Uganda (Box 8.20) demonstrate that school leaders with vision are crucial. The struggle of individual disabled teachers to become established is shown in India and Mozambique (Boxes 8.21 and 8.22). Boxes 8.23 to 8.34 provide examples of classroom adjustments in England to include a range of primary and secondary children. The chapter includes a useful annex on how classrooms have been made accessible in the UK. More discussion of what is needed to provide an inclusive classroom environment and prevent drop-out is offered in Chapter 9.

Leaving school too early is strongly linked with marginalisation. Young people with only a lower secondary education have limited opportunities to realise their potential and develop their learning skills. They face disadvantages in employment and are at greater risk of poverty and social exclusion.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities requires all states parties, educationalists, parents of disabled children and disabled people’s organisations to be actively aware of the changing paradigm around disability. There has been a shift from viewing the problem as one that is caused by the disabled person to identifying the barriers to disabled people’s inclusion in society on every level, and then enacting laws, policies, procedures and practices to change the situation.