* Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Children with disabilities are being denied an education across the developing world, reveals an article published in scientific journal PLOS One and authored by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and child rights organisation Plan International.
The article, entitled: “The Impact of Disability on the Lives of Children; Cross-Sectional Data Including 8,900 Children with Disabilities and 898,834 Children without Disabilities across 30 Countries”, is based on research undertaken in relation to Plan’s dataset of 1.4 million sponsored children. The research compares sponsored children with a disability to sponsored children without, from 30[1] countries throughout Africa, Latin America and Asia.
This unique piece of research found that children with disabilities are less likely to attend school than children without disabilities. In fact, the likelihood that a child with a disability did not attend school was often over ten times greater - with disabled boys and girls in Kenya the least likely to go to school.
From the analysis, it would seem that these children are being excluded as a result of their disability, rather than lack of access to education in general. This is particularly prevalent in Egypt, where 80% of children with disabilities cited this as a reason for not attending school.
Moreover, when children with disabilities do access education they often fall behind their peers.
The research also found that within the countries researched, inclusion rates for children with disabilities are highest for those with vision or hearing impairments, and lowest for those with learning, physical or communication impairments. This suggests the level of exclusion faced by children with a disability is linked to the type of impairment.
Children with disabilities are also more likely to have experienced a serious illness in the last 12 months, including malaria and malnutrition, than children without disabilities.
While most children with disabilities and without did seek and receive treatment, in some instances, the research found children with disabilities were less likely to have received treatment for their illness.
For example, in Indonesia, the findings indicate that treatment is deemed “too expensive” or they did not receive treatment because there was “no transport” available. It was further reported that boys with a disability were more likely to receive hospital treatment than girls in Indonesia.
This unique research proves that Plan’s sponsorship data is a valuable resource that can inform the organisation’s programme work and provide a platform to explore why children with disabilities are not attending formal education and why they are facing high rates of illness.
According to Dr Hannah Kuper, Director at the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine:
“The child sponsorship database is a unique and fantastic resource. It provides internationally comparable data of more than a million children across 49[2] countries, and includes detailed information about their lives.
“This information can be used to fill many existing knowledge gaps and help Plan and other organisations to better target the needs of children in resource-poor settings in order to improve their lives and their futures.”
According to Jacqui Gallinetti, Director of Research and Knowledge Management, Plan International:
“Plan has a valuable data source, which can be used for research to strengthen evidence based decision making. Inclusion is fundamental to children’s rights and this research highlights the scale of challenges faced by children with disabilities.”
The article can be found at: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0107300
For further details or interviews, please contact:
Davinder Kumar
Media Manager (External & Internal Communications)
Plan International
+44 7739326164
[1] Benin, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Mozambique, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe
[2] In 2012, there were 1,431,075 children in 49 countries who took part in Plan’s sponsorship programme (Myanmar does not yet have a sponsorship programme).
