This report provides an analysis of inclusive education in the Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in order to make recommendations for future actions. Whilst the report has a particular focus on persons with disabilities, it recognises that other groups of learners are marginalised within or excluded from educational provision. The main key messages made in this report are as follows:

Since late last century, a number of countries across the Arab region have devised laws that emphasise the rights of persons with disabilities in different aspects of society. Some countries have also developed national strategies in promotion of the rights of persons with disabilities in education. However, the definition of ‘inclusive education’ is still largely absent from national policies and documentation, and policies supporting inclusion practices at the government, district and school levels remain scarce. This lack of direction makes it difficult to develop teaching and learning environments that are inclusive.

Internationally there is an increased emphasis on the importance of building educational systems, schools and classrooms that are equitable and inclusive for all children and young people, including those with disabilities. In moving forward with this agenda, UNESCO guidance suggests that inclusion and equity should be seen as principles that inform all education policies, rather being seen as a separate policy.

Barriers facing inclusion are numerous and can be environmental, financial, attitudinal and institutional. Whilst such barriers exist globally, those that are associated with the availability of qualified teachers, allocation of teaching and financial resources, and the ineffectiveness of existing training and legislation are more prevalent in less developed countries. Issues related to safety, security and poverty are additional barriers confronting inclusion in the region, especially in rural and suburban areas, as well as in areas affected by humanitarian crises.

Strengthening educational systems requires partnerships and collaboration between all those involved in education in order to make best use of existing resources, whether human, physical or material. This requires a national education strategy for promoting equity and inclusion that draws on existing resources to reform educational systems. The absence of clarity and consistency will mean that some learners continue to be excluded, or denied equitable education.

Creating inclusive schools is likely to require re-thinking of the roles of everyone involved, including the responsibilities of those at ministry, district and school levels, and communities.
National teacher education programmes must build the capacities of practitioners to teach inclusively; regional supervisors will need to supervise and advise in line with inclusion principles; and head teachers have to lead a policy for inclusion within their schools.

Despite the growing awareness of the importance and need for equity and inclusion for all learners, including those with disabilities, within the Arab region more awareness campaigns are needed, especially in rural and suburban places, to increase awareness of parents, children with and without disabilities, and local communities about the importance of education on their lives. Building awareness amongst educators of what inclusion means, and how it can be reflected in the classroom, school and community is of equal importance. This is reflected in UNESCO’s call for all involved in education to be aligned with the meaning of inclusion and to build a shared vision of how inclusion can be reproduced in practice in their contexts.

The involvement of all concerned parties, including children and their parents, in decision making is vital. This is often overlooked in existing literature on the Arab region. Strengthening collaboration among educators and schools, and indeed parents and schools as partners on the journey of their children’s education helps change attitudes towards learner differences, as well as making inclusive education more attainable.

To be most effective, this collaboration needs to be imbedded in structures, with the aim of building positive collaboration between different ministries, as well as between schools and parents, and schools and local communities.

Headteachers and other educators need to share experiences with one another in relation to what strategies they have applied and how well they worked. To do so, schools, districts and ministries need to provide suitable platforms for teachers to share best practices and support them in sharing their experiences about what accommodations have been implemented, what worked, and what results they have generated. Several collaboration strategies, such as mutual observations, coaching and ‘lesson study’, can be applied in support of building professional collaborative approaches among teachers, and support and empower them to reach all their learners.

As far as the physical environment is concerned, schools need to allow access for all learners to the school and its educational facilities. Schools may need to put access plans in place to improve access for all. Having a policy that makes it mandatory for all schools to apply the universal standards of inclusive design from the design stage of the building should lead to increased accessibility and remove barriers associated to the physical environment.

Collaboration can also take place between schools, such as between high and low performing government schools, or between private and government schools, to support one another and work together to improve the quality of education offered. Similar to building collaboration between educators, collaboration between schools must be structured and systematically applied.

In conclusion, this report urges governments to take measures to put the education of learners with disabilities under the responsibilities of the Ministry of Education. It also recommends that ministries of education should allocate adequate resources and to draw actionable plans to bring an end to the segregation of provision and ensure a nationwide commitment to inclusive education of all. This approach is summed up in UNESCO guidance published in 2017 by the statement: ‘Every learner matters and matters equally’. The implication of this is that a strategy for promoting inclusion and equity can provide a pathway to educational excellence.

Source: UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization