What works to support girls with disabilities reaching and staying in school?

Challenge #1: Worldwide, girls faced greater barriers accessing school than boys before the pandemic, with disparities likely to have increased on account of Covid-19

• UNICEF data suggests that only two-thirds of countries globally had achieved gender parity in primary school enrolment before the pandemic. Reasons include overarching and institutionalised gender-based stereotypes and biases, early marriage and motherhood, limited access to sexual and reproductive health services and gender-based violence.
• Following widespread global school closures on account of Covid-19, and based on evidence from past crises, UNICEF predicts widening disparities and difficulties for girl children re-entering education. These disparities will be more keenly felt by vulnerable groups: girls living in poverty, with disabilities, in fragile contexts or from rural areas.

Challenge 2: Girls with disabilities may face additional barriers accessing school, compared with other girls, and with boys with disabilities

• Children with disabilities experience multiple barriers to accessing school compared with children without disabilities. These can include disability stigma, abuse and discrimination; poor health on account of limited access to child protection, health and (re)habilitative services; mental well-being; poverty; and resource allocation.
• Those who do access school are often disadvantaged compared to their peers due to unavailable personnel to support learning, physical inaccessibility of buildings and resources and limited or no access to specialist curricula for inclusive learning (e.g. braille or assistive technology).
• Girl children with disabilities are at risk of intersecting barriers on account of both their disability, and their gender. For example, in addition to the barriers above, there is evidence that WASH-related barriers - including a lack of accessible latrines and inclusive menstrual hygiene management facilities - may be a key driver for girls with disabilities dropping out of schools, and that their risk of experiencing violence and contracting HIV are both higher.

Challenge 3: There is some evidence on what works best to improve educational outcomes for children with disabilities in LMICs who are in school, but gaps remain

• We recently reviewed the evidence on what works to improve educational outcomes of children with disabilities in school and found limited evidence from LMICs on the types of intervention that improved outcomes. The brief emphasised a need for further, robust evidence from LMICs, particularly comparing inclusive education to specialist education approaches.
• One large literature review of 131 studies highlighted the limited evidence available on what types of systems were most appropriate for children with disabilities (for example inclusive versus segregated learning) and recommended incorporating academic performance indicators into research to better estimate school outcomes.
• A recent review of educational technology (EdTech) in LMICs identified 51 articles and 9 reports, predominantly from South America and Asia. The review found promising evidence of the role of EdTech in enabling participation of children with disabilities. However, less than 20% of included studies provided a gender breakdown of included participants.
• A separate review on increasing the accessibility of education, based largely on evidence from high income countries, found some evidence of positive classroom outcomes but called for better data on relative costs to aid decision-making.
• Finally, a review of 72 predominantly high-income county studies on the participation of children with disabilities in school determined that attending and actively participating in school was affected by context (attitudes and knowledge of adults and peers; availability and accessibility of materials and structures) and psycho-social factors (child identity, preferences, health and competence).

Challenge 4: There is limited focus on intersectionality in the available literature – not only between disability and gender, but also between gender and poverty or between impairment type

• Wapling (2016), identified six themes across the literature on inclusive education: teacher-, child-, school-, parent/community-, or, mixed- focus, and external (e.g. policy, legislation). However, the review found very limited evidence of comparison even between children with and without disabilities, let alone among children with disabilities disaggregated by gender.
• A separate review of 13 studies seeking to identify what educational interventions worked to produce good outcomes for children with disabilities, revealed gender-disaggregated outcomes in only two studies: A three-country study on the impact of an early intervention programme in India, Pakistan and Zambia did not identify differences by gender. Similarly, no gender differences were identified in a study in Lebanon on improving reading skills among children with dyslexia.
• One good example from Kenya is an evidence-based intervention that drew on baseline research to develop a 6-component Inclusive Education model. The model comprised different activities designed to enhance access to education for girls with disabilities, including teacher training, improving the school environment, family and community awareness and providing peer support. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, the study compared literacy and numeracy in an intervention and control group, determining positive outcomes in the intervention group, controlled for disability severity and grade. However, the study also experienced high attrition at follow up, and only explained up to 8% of variability in outcomes, highlighting the complexity of issues involved.