Education
Education provides children with the knowledge and skills they need to grow and prosper, creating well-being, pathways to future opportunities and healthier lives. Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG) has put quality education for all children at the center of the global development agenda. Two SDG targets (4.5 and 4.a) specifically focus on ensuring equal participation in education for children with disabilities. Despite this widespread agreement on the importance of education, children with disabilities are still falling behind. They are more likely to have never attended school or to drop out due to multiple barriers, including stigma, lack of trained teachers, inadequate learning materials and inaccessible facilities. This can be compounded by negative beliefs about the capabilities of children with disabilities.
Children with disabilities tend to have lower learning outcomes, including in reading and numeracy skills, which has lifelong implications. A lack of foundational reading and numeracy skills severely limits future educational and job opportunities. Foundational reading skills have also been associated with more positive health and nutrition rates throughout one’s life, and lack of such skills could lead to poorer health outcomes for children with disabilities.
Despite the clear benefits of parental involvement, children with disabilities do not always obtain the same level of support for learning as children without disabilities. This can be due to lowered expectations on the part of parents of children with disabilities. Additionally, parents may struggle to adapt their communication and interaction styles to accommodate the disability-specific needs of their child, resulting in feeling less able to engage in her or his education and even in withdrawing their support.
