Persistent barriers While this project was successful in addressing a wide range of barriers experienced by disabled girls, some persisted and require further consideration for future projects. Transport remained a significant for many girls, particularly those with physical disabilities. Many were satisfied that they could attend their closest school. However, for some distance remained a barrier. Infrastructure challenges can make travelling to school independently impossible. Where the cost of purchasing accessible transport is a barrier the increased focus on resource generation may be an effective strategy. Collaboration with other organisations and communities to come up with creative, sustainable solutions for transport is also essential. In addition, for some particularly those with intellectual, complex or multiple disabilities, the support available through this project was not sufficient to meet their learning needs. For example the time available for teacher training did not allow for in-depth exploration of specific types of disability. More time could be focused on the development and delivery of individual education plans. This would allow for children to be offered more personalised care and/or home schooling with scheduled teacher visits to enable their participation in education. Standardised assessment and monitoring tools, that focus on progress in numeracy and literacy, are to the needs of children with intellectual and complex disabilities and fail to capture their progress. For future inclusive education projects we aim to develop a specific adaptive pathway for transition, focusing on those children with more severe learning disabilities. It will provide more intensive adaptive teaching methods and learning materials targeted at this group. While we want to maximise the learning opportunities for literacy and numeracy as far as possible for this group using adaptive methods, we also plan to implement more functional learning assessments. This will enable us to capture a wider range of learning outcomes including life skills, functional activities and relationships. 5. Conclusion This project has demonstrated the success that can be achieved through taking a multi-level systems change approach to tackling education inequality for girls with disabilities. At the individual level the project mobilised resources and provided direct support to children and their families to overcome the personal barriers they face. Communities and schools were provided with the training and tools to move towards inclusion
Persistent barriers While this project was successful in addressing a wide range of barriers experienced by disabled girls, some persisted and require further consideration for future projects. Transport remained a significant for many girls, particularly those with physical disabilities. Many were satisfied that they could attend their closest school. However, for some distance remained a barrier. Infrastructure challenges can make travelling to school independently impossible. Where the cost of purchasing accessible transport is a barrier the increased focus on resource generation may be an effective strategy. Collaboration with other organisations and communities to come up with creative, sustainable solutions for transport is also essential. In addition, for some particularly those with intellectual, complex or multiple disabilities, the support available through this project was not sufficient to meet their learning needs. For example the time available for teacher training did not allow for in-depth exploration of specific types of disability. More time could be focused on the development and delivery of individual education plans. This would allow for children to be offered more personalised care and/or home schooling with scheduled teacher visits to enable their participation in education. Standardised assessment and monitoring tools, that focus on progress in numeracy and literacy, are to the needs of children with intellectual and complex disabilities and fail to capture their progress. For future inclusive education projects we aim to develop a specific adaptive pathway for transition, focusing on those children with more severe learning disabilities. It will provide more intensive adaptive teaching methods and learning materials targeted at this group. While we want to maximise the learning opportunities for literacy and numeracy as far as possible for this group using adaptive methods, we also plan to implement more functional learning assessments. This will enable us to capture a wider range of learning outcomes including life skills, functional activities and relationships. 5. Conclusion This project has demonstrated the success that can be achieved through taking a multi-level systems change approach to tackling education inequality for girls with disabilities. At the individual level the project mobilised resources and provided direct support to children and their families to overcome the personal barriers they face. Communities and schools were provided with the training and tools to move towards inclusion
closing_the_gap.docx