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The importance of education equality
The importance of education equality
The importance of education equality
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CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction
Rwanda is striving to provide quality education to all children. The political will and the state commitment to provide education to all citizens regardless of their different needs is also clarified by the national constitution of June 2003, emphasizing both rights of education for all and special provision to learners with disabilities and other educational disadvantages:
“Every person has the right to education; the state has the duty to take special measures to facilitate the education of the disadvantaged” Article 40, (Republic of Rwanda, 2003a. p 72).
In addition, the legislative and policy environment in respect to equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities appears to be conducive today. Some of the evident indicators include: The ratification of the UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and its optional protocol in 2008; The establishment of National Council for People with Disabilities (NCPD) in 2011(Law N° 03/2011 of 10/02/2011) and in 2013 EDPRS2 was launched with clear prioritization on disability rights across thematic areas (Republic of Rwanda, 2013).
Despite the legislative and political willingness in Rwanda, people with disabilities like in other communities of the sub-region still face some kind of educational exclusion and marginalisation. The trend is evidenced by their low representation in educational and training institutions (Karangwa, Iyamuremye & Muhindakazi, 2013).
The current study looks into the learning difficulties associated with the curriculum faced by visually impaired students.
1.2 Background of the study
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) in its article 24 addresses the...
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...education and three years of general cycle of secondary education without paying school fees (Republic of Rwanda, 2008b).
1.9 Conclusion
Education of children with visual impairment in Rwanda dates back in 1960s. Since then, the country has undertaken different initiatives through enforcement of laws and establishment of policies and strategies to provide quality education to these learners. Nevertheless there is a remarkable gap between the policy and implementation.
The research is not promising to bridge the gap by providing solutions to the challenges or difficulties that these children face but to inform the decision makers and stakeholders in education sector about the challenges faced by visually impaired learners to access national curriculum equally as their sighted counterparts and finally, the research will provide recommendations for improvement.
A Thousand Hills to Heaven, published this past November, gives a current perspective on Rwandan culture, politics, and economics. The book’s title is a connection between the nation’s nickname, “the land of a thousand hills,” and Heaven, Josh Ruxin’s restaurant. Heaven sits atop one of the thousand hills and represents economic and emotional progress for the country. The book is relevant to the international development community because every United Nations member state is racing to complete the Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s), signed in 2000. The MDG’s are a UN enterprise that challenge the global community towards eight different development targets. Rwanda, though one of the most impoverished nations in the UN, is one of the closest to completing several of the goals by 2015. A recent UN report said, “Rwanda is very likely to meet – and possibly even surpass – the MDG targets for child and matern...
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The recent history of the visually impaired is riddled with illiteracy and inconvenient methods of writing that put sighted students at a huge advantage over their visually impaired classmates. Take the story of Gerard Guarniero, for example – he spent eighth grade using a metal device that, while it enabled him to write in Braille, took him “three to four hours times as long to write the same paper as his sighted classmates.” However, Mr. Guarniero has not been in eighth grade for more than 40 years; since then, technology for Braille students has changed dramatically, and for the better.
According to NIB study,which analyzed potential reasons why walloping 70 percents of blind people are not employed, they found that “hiring managers, most respondents (54 percent) felt there were few jobs at their company that blind employees could perform,...Forty-two percent of hiring managers believe blind employees need someone to assist them on the job;.. 34 percent said blind workers are more likely to have work-related accidents.’ These statistics shows us the the condition of being blind is associated with being incapable, clumsy, and unproductive in the workforce. Sontag teaches us when when we give meaning to a disease like blindness, we constructed it in a way that is punishing to those afflicted with the disease. The reality is blind people are capable individual who can carry out the job as well as a normal person in the workforce. This reality is often hidden from managers by negative stereotypes of the condition of being
The World Health Organisation, WHO, (1980) defines disability in the medical model as a physical or mental impairment that restricts participation in an activity that a ‘normal’ human being would partake, due to a lack of ability to perform the task . Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (n.d.) states that the medical model emphasizes that there is a problem regarding the abilities of the individual. They argue that the condition of the disabled persons is solely ‘medical’ and as a result the focus is to cure and provide treatment to disabled people (Michigan Disability Rights Coalition, 2014). In the medical model, issues of disability are dealt with according to defined government structures and policies and are seen as a separate issue from ordinary communal concerns (Emmet, 2005: 69). According to Enabling Teachers and Trainers to Improve the Accessibility of Adult Education (2008) people with disabilities largely disa...
The values that primary education instills in children serves as the basis for their future. Primary education is a basic right for every child in Zimbabwe but because of speech and language impairment many children are failing to access primary education. This situation may be as a result of lack of support from the relevant government ministry and parents. Even though the ministry acknowledge that there are children with speech and language impairment who require special attention, it appears not much is being done to create an enabling environment for learning for children with speech and language impairment. Thus, recognition by the government comes in the form of recruitment and training of teachers of chil...
People with intellectual disabilities have faced discrimination, alienation and stigma for a very long time. History around the world is full of horrid episodes where the intellectual disabled have faced the worst treatments. Though some positive strides have been made in respect to their the rights, even today they face a myriad of challenges and are yet to fully access and exploit opportunities in the society. It is important to note that people with intellectual disability are also human, thus they are entitled to all human rights without any discrimination. They are the most marginalized people in the society and are excluded from social, cultural, educational and economic opportunities. (Nora, E., 2004). This paper looks into the issues of human rights for the intellectually disabled persons, the challenges that they face and how their human rights can be enhanced.
According to the World Health Organisation (2011), there are more than 1 billion people with disabilities in the world, with this number rising. Many of these people will be excluded from the regular situations we, ‘the ordinary’, experience in everyday life. One of these experiences is our right to education. Article 42 of the Irish Constitution states that the state shall provide for free primary education until the age of 18, but is this the right to the right education? Why should being born with a disability, something which is completely out of your control, automatically limit your chances of success and cut you off from the rest of society due to being deemed ‘weaker’ by people who have probably never met you? With approximately 15% of the world’s population having disabilities, how come society is unable to fully accept people with disabilities? In order to break this notion, we must begin with inclusion.
In the contemporary society, education is a foundational human right. It is essentially an enabling right that creates various avenues for the exercise of other basic human rights. Once it is guaranteed, it facilitates the fulfillment of other freedoms and rights more particularly attached to children. Equally, lack of education provision endangers all fundamental rights associate with the welfare of human beings. Consequently, the role of education and in particular girl child education as a promoter of nation states welfare cannot be overemphasized. As various scholars asserts, the challenges and problems faced by the African girl child, to enjoy her right to education are multifaceted. Such difficulties include sexual abuse, child labor, discrimination, early pregnancies, violence and poverty, culture and religious practices (Julia 219). Across the developing world, millions of young girls lack proper access to basic education. In the contemporary society, this crisis, which is particularly critical in remote and poor region of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia have fascinated increased public attention. However, almost all global nation states have assured their commitment in addressing various girl child challenges and allowed a declaration to enable each young girl and boy receive education by the year 2015 (Herz and Sperling 17). This target was firmly established and approved in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. However, this study will focus on girls’ education in Africa and its impacts to their livelihood.
Whether born from ignorance, fear, misunderstanding, or hate, society’s attitudes limit people from experiencing and appreciating the full potential a person with a disability can achieve. This treatment is unfair, unnecessary, and against the law (Purdie). Discrimination against people with disabilities is one of the greatest social injustices in the country today. Essential changes are needed in society’s basic outlook in order for people with disabilities to have an equal opportunity to succeed in life. To begin with, full inclusion in the education system for people with disabilities should be the first of many steps that are needed to correct the social injustices that people with disabilities currently face.
Education is the key that allows people to move up in the world, seek better jobs, and ultimately succeed fully in life. Education is very important, and no one should be deprived of it. The right to an education is one of the human natural rights which every person should have from youth to when they are old. Human natural rights are fundamental privileges acquire from the rational nature of man and the natural moral. Right to an education is an inalienable right for it cannot be renounced or transferred because it is necessary for the fulfillment of one’s primitive obligation.
A dusty, one-room schoolhouse on the edge of a village. An overworked teacher trying to manage a room full of boisterous children. Students sharing schoolbooks that are in perpetual short supply, crammed in rows of battered desks. Children worn out after long treks to school, stomachs rumbling with hunger. Others who vanish for weeks on end, helping their parents with the year-end harvest. Still others who never come back, lacking the money to pay for school uniforms and school supplies. Such is the daily dilemma faced by many young people in the developing world as they seek to obtain that most precious of all commodities, an education.
Since most students with visual impairments learn in the general education classrooms it is important for teachers to take time to help these students develop an independent spirit while working towards general education goals. In return, the freedom and confidence they gain from learning to do everyday tasks will only aid them in their future endeavors.