A Girls' Education Policy Analysis Workshop session to analyse and develop ideas for the girls education policy.

1. Girls’ Education Policy
Analysis Workshop
17 June 2014

2. • Welcome from NUDOR ES
– Welcome
– What is NUDOR
– Ground rules

3. Agenda: morning
Time Activity Responsible
9.00am Welcome and opening remarks NUDOR Executive
Secretary
9.05am Objectives Emile
9.10am Group introduction – ice breaker Emile
9.30am Why are we analysing the policy? Kate
The Girls’ Education Policy Analysis
Process
Kate
10.00am Education of girls with disabilities in
Rwanda
Emile
10.45am TEA BREAK
11.00am What does a good Girls’ Education
Policy look like?
Group work
11.30am Group feedback Group work
12.00pm Agreeing terms of reference Kate
12.30 LUNCH

4. Agenda: afternoon
Time Activity Responsible
1.30pm Policy Analysis Emile
3.00pm Group Feedback Emile
3.45pm Summary and closing remarks NUDOR Executive
Secretary

5. Objectives:
• Identify areas for development in the Girls’
Education Policy
• Consult and gather the view of persons with
disabilities / DPOs
• Collect ideas and feedback from stakeholders on
how girls with disabilities can be included in the
policy
• Develop stronger working relationships with
NUDOR MOs and education and gender
specialists
• To raise awareness of issues girls with disabilities
face amongst gender and education specialists

6. Introductions
• Tell us who you are and which
organisation / institution you are from
• Tell us one short funny story about when
you were at school

7. Why are we analysing the Girls’
Education policy?
• MINEDUC and MIGEPROF are currently
reviewing the policy – this is an
opportunity for the sector to ensure that
disability is mainstreamed.
• NUDOR wants to ensure that the new
policy complies with the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities as the current policy does not.

8. United Nations
Convention on the
Rights of Persons
with Disabilities
The United Nations Convention on the Persons
with Disabilities and Rwanda

9. Which articles?
• Article 6 - Women
• Article 7 – Children with disabilities
• Article 8 – Awareness raising
• Article 9 – Accessibility
• Article 24 – Education
• Article 30 – Participation in cultural life,
recreation, leisure and sport

10. Women with disabilities
being treated equally
• Countries agree that
women and girls have a
disability are treated
unfairly in lots of different
ways.
• Countries will work to make
sure that women and girls
who have a disability have
full, free and equal lives.
Article 6

11. Children with disabilities
being treated equally
• Countries agree that children with a
disability have the same rights as
other children and are treated equally
with others.
• What is best for the child will be the
most important thing to think about.
• Countries agree that children with a
disability have the right to be heard in
all things that can affect them in their
lives. Support will be given to children
to help make this happen.
Article 7

12. Giving people information
about disability
• Rwanda has agreed to do things to make
everyone else aware that persons with
disabilities have the same rights as
everyone else and to show them what
persons with disabilities can do.
• They should do this by:
– Teaching all children about equal rights for
persons with a disability.
Article 8

13. Accessibility
• Countries should make
sure persons with
disabilities have better
access to things in all
areas of life.
• There should be better
access to public buildings
like hospitals and
schools, and transport.
Article 9
School

14. • There should be better
access to information.
• Signs should be in
easy read and Braille.

15. • More guides and
sign language
interpreters should
be available in
public buildings.
• There should be
guidelines about
how to make
access to public
services better.

16. Education
• Persons with a
disability have a right to
education.
• Rwanda will make sure
persons with a disability
have the opportunity to
go to mainstream
schools and can carry
on learning throughout
their lives so that:
Article 24

17. • Persons with a disability
are able to develop their
skills and abilities and
take their place in the
world.
• Persons with a disability
are not excluded from
(kept out of) any sort of
education.
• Persons with a disability
can go to good local
schools, and don’t have
to pay for them, the same
as everyone else.

18. • Persons with a
disability have their
needs met as far as
possible.
• Persons with a
disability get proper
support to learn.
• People can learn
Braille and other
ways of
communicating as
needed.

19. • Teach people sign
language and see it
as a language of the
deaf community.
• Deaf and blind
children get the right
education and
support for them to
learn.
• Make sure teachers
have the right skills.

20. • Provide the right
support for persons
with a disability to
continue their
education as adults
if they want to.

21. Sport and leisure
• Persons with a disability have the right to take part
in sports and leisure as much as anybody else.
• With a view to enabling persons with disabilities to
participate on an equal basis with others in
recreational, leisure and sporting activities, States
Parties shall take appropriate measures to ensure
that children with disabilities have equal access
with other children to participation in play,
recreation and leisure and sporting activities,
including those activities in the school system;
Article 30

22. Girls’ Education Policy Analysis
Process
Today’s Policy Analysis
Meeting – 17 June
2014
NUDOR will collate and write
up comments into a
stakeholder position paper
The position paper will be
circulated via email to
participants for validation - 27
June 2014
The position paper will be
submitted to MINEDUC and
MIGEPROF – 11 July 2014

23. Education of girls with disabilities in
Rwanda
• Picture of girl with a disability at school

24. The global picture
• There are over one billion people with disabilities in the world, of
whom between 110-190 million experience very significant
difficulties. This corresponds to about 15% of the world’s population.
• Globally, an estimated 93 million children – or 1 in 20 of those aged up to 14
years of age – live with a moderate or severe disability.
• Gender is a crucial factor: Girls are less likely than boys to receive care and
food and are more likely to be left out of family interactions and activities.
Girls and young women with disabilities are ‘doubly disabled’. They confront
not only the prejudice and inequities encountered by many persons with
disabilities, but are also constrained by traditional gender roles and barriers.
• http://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/filesSWCR2013_ENG_Lo_res_24_Apr_2013.pdf
• Girls with disabilities are also less likely to get an education, receive vocational training or
find employment than are boys with disabilities or girls without disabilities.
• http://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/filesSWCR2013_ENG_Lo_res_24_Apr_2013.pdf

25. Census data 2012
• There are 446,453 people with disability in Rwanda (over the age of 5) in a total
resident population of 10.51 million inhabitants.
• More women with disability (225,303) than males (221,150).
Prevalence
• The prevalence of disability increases with age. It varies around 3% between 5
years and 29 years before increasing quickly from age 30 to reach 25% by age
80.
• The prevalence of disability varies slightly by sex and substantially by area of
residence. It is far higher in rural areas than in urban areas at all ages.
• Difficulty walking or climbing is the most common disability among the
population aged 5 years and above (2.5% of them suffer from it). It is followed
by difficulty in learning/concentrating with a prevalence of 1%.
• Difficulty speaking is the rarest disability with a prevalence of 0.2%.
• The prevalence of the different types of disability does not vary by sex but it
varies importantly by area of residence. Typically the prevalence of each type of
disability is twice higher in rural areas than in urban areas.
Causes of Disability
• Disease/illness is the main cause of disability in Rwanda, reported by 52% of
people with disability. It is followed by injury/accident (20%) and congenital
origin (13%). War, mines and genocide were reported as the main causes of
disability by 8%.
• Disease/Illness is more reported by females than males (58% vs. 45%) while
injury/accident is more reported by males (25%) than females (15%) as well as
war/mines (7% vs. 3%).

26. Girls with a disability in school
• How many girls with disability are
receiving an education in Rwanda?
• 32,241 children and young persons with
disabilities were enrolled in Rwandan
schools.
• 14,733 (or 46%) are female
MINEDUC Educational Statistical Year Book 2012

27. Pre-primary
• 1,259 children with disabilities out of
130,403 total students
• 588 girls with disabilities out of 67,242 girls
• 671 boys with disabilities out 63,161 boys
MINEDUC Educational Statistical Year Book 2012
Only 0.4% of all students in pre-
primary school are girls with a disability

28. Primary
• 23,863 children with disabilities out of
2,394,674 total students
• 10,793 girls with disabilities out of 1,214,190
girls
• 13,070 boys with disabilities out 1,180,484
boys
MINEDUC Educational Statistical Year Book 2012
Only 0.45% of all students in primary
school are girls with a disability

29. Secondary
• 6,153 students with disabilities out of
534,712 total students
• 3,012 girls out of 279,209 girls
• 3,141 boys with disabilities out 255,503
boys
Only 0.56% of all students in secondary
school are girls with a disability

30. VTC
• 966 students with disabilities out of 13,577
total students
• 340 girls with disabilities out of 5,333 girls
• 626 boys with disabilities out 8,244 boys
• MINEDUC Educational Statistical Year Book 2012
Only 2.5% of all students in Vocational
Training Centres are girls with a
disability

31. What does this mean?
• The data also shows a decline since 2011;
the full cohort of student from any one
level in the school system in 2011 has not
progressed to the subsequent level in
2012, and overall student numbers have
declined.

32. Why is participation so low?
• Why are so few girls with disabilities going
to school?

33. Socio - cultural factors
• High levels of stigma and discrimination around
disability
• ‘Pointlessness of education’ argument for girls is
often even worst for those with disabilities
• Patrilineal nature of society - Cultural bias against
women and rigid gender roles leads to preferential
treatment and allocation of resources and
opportunities to male children at the expense of
their sisters.
• Anecdotal evidence suggests that girls with
disabilties may be more exploited in the home
than non-disabled girls.

34. School related factors
• No child-centred curriculum
• Still waiting for Special Educational Needs
and Inclusive Education Policy
• Focus on segregation rather than inclusion
• Lack of adaptive materials
• School infrastructure – inaccessible and far
away
• Inaccessible toilets with no sanitary pads or
place for disposal

35. Educational Administration
• Less female teachers – role models
• Less female teachers with science and
technology
• Lack of awareness of barriers for girls and
girls with disabilities amongst educators
• Lack of awareness of obligation to raise
awareness of the rights of children with
disabilities amongst educators

36. Measurement and assessment
• Narrow, medical definitions are likely to yield
lower estimates than broader ones that take
into account social barriers to functioning and
participation.
• Difficulties in registering and recognizing the
presence of children with disabilities and
certain impairments.
• Data collection – what constitutes ‘disability’?
• Classification is still new and being rolled out.

37. Affirmative Action
• Affirmative action measures are currently
at risk given the recent Government
position regarding tertiary education.

38. Gender Based Violence
• In Rwanda, women with no education are twice as
likely to have experienced physical violence as
women with secondary or higher education. (DHS
2010)
• Two in five women (41%) have suffered physical
violence at some point since age 15; one in five
women has experienced sexual violence. (DHS
2010)
• According to the United Nations, women and girls
with disabilities suffer from sexual violence twice
as often as girls and women without disabilities. Fact
sheet on Persons with Disabilities (www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?navid=33&pid=18 – (March 5, 2011)

39. Have we missed anything?
• Let us know!

40. What does a good girls’ education
policy look like?
• Post it note exercise
• Write down things that you think should be
included in the new policy, specifically for
girls with disabilities
• Put your group number on your post it

42. Group feedback
• Can one person per group present the
findings from each group.
• Please put your post its on the flip chart

43. Agreeing the terms of reference
• We need to agree on how we are to assess
the current policy
• For instance:
– Has the policy clearly identified the problem it
hopes to solve?
– Is it the right problem?
– Does it have a clear vision of what it wants to
achieve?
– Does it have a budget?
– Does it have clear measurable targets?
– How will it be monitored?

45. Policy Analysis
• Please can everyone
re-join their group.
• Please can everyone
read the Executive
Summary and
Introduction.
• Then each group will
analyse a different
section of the policy.
• Write your comments
on a flip chart.
• Group 1: iii – 5
• Group 2: 6-11
• Group 3: 12 – 17
• Group 4: 18 – 23
• Group 5: 24-29
• Group 6: 30-36
• Remember to use the
agreed Terms of
Reference!

46. Group feedback

47. Summary and closing remarks

48. References
• World Report on Disability Factsheet -
http://who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/factsheet.pdf?ua=1
• UNICEF: State of the World’s Children – Children with Disabilities
2013
http://www.unicef.org/sowc2013/files/SWCR2013_ENG_Lo_res_24_
Apr_2013.pdf
• WHO World Report on Disability -
http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789240685215_eng.pdf
• Global Campaign for Education - Equal Right, Equal Opportunity:
Education and Disability
http://www.campaignforeducation.org/en/campaigns/education-
and-disability