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‘Are we learning together? Addressing barriers to inclusive education in the African region’. 6-7 Nov 2018, South Africa

Date: 6-7 November 2018

Venue: Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, South Africa.

See conference website for more details.

This will be the 6th Annual African Disability Rights Conference. Conference participants include persons with disabilities, their families and their representative organisations, policy makers, policy implementers, lawyers, faculty from universities around the world, human rights activists and scholars.

Read the call for papers. Deadline for submitting abstracts: 1 July 2018.

Call for papers text, image of smili boy in wheelchair with muscled arms drawn on board behind him. Sponsors logos

**PAST** China and Hong Kong: Overcoming Disability Exclusion in Education. 28 June, Leeds, UK

Visit the Eventbrite page for more details and to book a place.

The University of Leeds Centre for Disability Studies, U-Lead East Asia Disability Rights Forum and China Vision are running two open events exploring the struggle for inclusive education in Chinese society.

Date: 28 June 2018

Venue: University of Leeds, LS2 9JT. Social Sciences Building Seminar Room 12.21 & 12.25

10:30-12:00 – Lecture: Overcoming disability exclusion in education: mobilization, litigation and advocating legal reforms in Hong Kong

13:30 – 15:30 – Seminar: Spearheading Pre-school Inclusion in China

NOTE: This event is not organised by EENET. Please contact the organisers directly with any queries.

*NEW* Inclusive transition guidelines

In recent years, extensive work has been carried out globally to make kindergartens, schools and other education institutions more inclusive. Unfortunately, problems can arise when learners move from one education setting to another. These transition periods are often when learners drop out of education, especially if they find their new school is not as welcoming, supportive or enjoyable as the school they just left.

Bridge of Hope Armenia has recently published a very helpful guide on how to make transition from early years education to primary education more inclusive and supportive. The guide is called Transition Guidance to Support Smooth Transition from Pre-school Institutions to Primary School.

Front cover of guidelines book, cartoons of children standing with adult; playing; waving.

The advice provided can easily be adapted to suit the education system in other countries. It can also be adapted to give us ideas for smooth transition of learners between higher levels of education.

The guide is an output from a Bridge of Hope project focusing on improving transition experiences. The project evolved following Bridge of Hope’s collaboration with EENET on our UNCRPD Article 24 project. While we were investigating progress towards Articles 24 and contributing to the UNCRPD consultation for the General Comment on Inclusive Education, we realised that the issue of transition was not well researched and documented. Consequently, Bridge of Hope carried out some action research on the topic. This led to the development of their transition project in Armenia and ultimately to the preparation of these new guidelines.

The online version of the guidelines is a low-resolution PDF document (4MB). If you require a high-resolution version (24MB) for printing, please contact EENET.

*NEW* EENET’s Arabic Language Community

We now have a website section for our Arabic language community. This includes a short list of suggested reading, a list of all documents available in Arabic in EENET’s library, and a facility to sign up to our Arabic language email list.

We will be adding more documents and information to this section in the coming year, so please check it regularly. We welcome contributions of Arabic language articles, case stories, training materials and so on, so please get in touch with the co-ordinator if you have anything to share.

تقدم شبكة تمكين التعليم مجتمعها الناطق باللغة العربية. يتضمن قسم اللغة العربية قائمة من القراءات المقترحة والمتاحة باللغة العربية عبر المكتبة الالكترونية للشبكة. يمكنكم ايضاً التسجيل في القائمة البريدية لمجتمع اللغة العربية.

نعمل على اضافة المزيد من المصادر والمعلومات لهذا القسم خلال العام المقبل. لذلك ندعوكم للإطلاع بشكل دوري على انشطة المجتمع. يسعدنا دائماً إستقبال مساهماتكم عبر مقالات مكتوبة باللغة العربية سواء كانت قصص من مجتمعاتكم التعليمية المحلية او قضايا تعليمية تودون مشاركتها اومواد تدريبية وما إلي ذلك. نرحب بتواصلكم دائماً عبر الكتابة لمنسق المجتمع اذا كان لديكم مساهمة تودون مشاركتها.

 

**Deadline expired** Consultancy: Sign Language dictionary development, South Sudan, Light for the World

Read full details

Application deadline: 8 June 2018

Light for the World is seeking a consultant to lead in the collection of new signs, as well as developing the sign language dictionary project. He/she will be responsible for data collection, editing and printing of the dictionary. This is expected to be carried out between July 2018 and July 2019.

Consultant profile

  • A linguist with at least a master’s degree
  • Experience in the development of new signs as well as a sign language dictionary
  • Proactive and self-starting
  • Experience working in participatory processes, and able to organise inclusive consultations
  • Fluent in English
  • Ideally experience with Photoshop
  • Experience in working in conflict settings

 See the full details for how to apply.

Foundations of Teaching: A training toolkit

Good quality teaching is at the heart of inclusive education. But too often teachers are not given the initial training and ongoing professional development and support they need to be ‘good teachers’, which makes it very difficult for them to become inclusive teachers.

Toolkit cover page. Photo shows female teaher learning over desk writing, with child either side of her

This toolkit from Save the Children, written by EENET team members, provides a selection of workshop sessions to help teachers develop essential skills. These skills will be a foundation onto which more complex and specialist training, such as issues of inclusion and diversity, can be built. These foundational sessions can also be woven into inclusive education training, for instance, if the trainer notices gaps in teachers’ skills and experience or wants to help boost their confidence by strengthening their core skills.

The toolkit is available in its original format: The Foundations of Teaching: Training for educators in core teaching competencies (PDF).

It has also been adapted for use in Tanzania: The Foundations of Tanzanian Teaching: Training for educators in core teaching competencies (PDF).

 

 

Remember to re-subscribe to our mailing list

Have you already subscribed to our mailing list to receive our weekly update emails? If so you will recently have received an email asking you to confirm that you want to stay on the list. We have to ask you this because of a new EU data protection regulation – the GDPR – which comes into force on 25 May 2018. If you don’t reconfirm your subscription, we have to remove you from our mailing list. We want to keep you in our global inclusive education network, so please do remember to reconfirm your subscription.

If you haven’t previously signed up to our mailing list, why not do it now?! You can sign up via our website.

screenshot of EENET's email sign up form

 

**Deadline expired** Consultancy: Research into participation of students with disabilities in Integrity Clubs in Nepal, for Integrity Action

Download full details.

Application deadline: 20 May 2018

Due to limited funding, Integrity Action is seeking a consultant who is based in Nepal. International travel costs cannot be paid for this assignment.

Integrity Action would like to commission contextual research to ensure that its activities in Integrity Clubs are informed by the views and experiences of girls and boys with disabilities, as well as other community members. In an Integrity Club, students aged 14-18 come together to discuss integrity, how a lack  of integrity impacts on their community, and how any effort to uphold integrity must be inclusive. Students also put their learning into practice by acting as community monitors. They monitor projects and services in their community, including their own schools.

The research will be based in the Kathmandu Valley and Sindhupalchok, Nepal.

Read the full terms of reference for more details and to find out how to apply.

Forced Migration Review seeking articles on education

Forced Migration Review (FMR) issue 60 – to be published in February 2019 – will include a major feature on education.

Deadline for submission of articles: Monday 15th October 2018

Read the full call for articles.

Forced Migration Review logo

Conflict and displacement can cause significant disruption to school attendance and learning. Although governments have made significant progress towards meeting various education-related goals, children and youth affected by conflict and specifically by conflict- and disaster-induced displacement make up the overwhelming majority of those who still do not have access to the ‘inclusive and equitable quality education’ and ‘lifelong learning opportunities’ set out in Sustainable Development Goal 4 and agreed as essential in the Education 2030 Agenda. The implications of inadequate education planning and delivery in displacement contexts are considerable.

This new issue of FMR will provide a forum for practitioners, advocates, policymakers, researchers and those directly affected to look at recent developments, share experience, debate perspectives and offer recommendations.

See full call for articles for a more detailed outline of the proposed scope of the FMR issue.

The FMR Editors are looking for policy- and practice-oriented submissions, reflecting a diverse range of experience and opinions, which address questions such as the following:

  • What examples are there of effective provision of quality education in displacement, and what can be learned from these examples?
  • What has been learned about expanding successful learning initiatives? How does this vary in differing contexts of forced migration?
  • What particular challenges arise in the provision of education depending on the type of setting, whether camp, urban or other?
  • How can protection of children and young people in conflict and displacement be strengthened, with a particular view to improving their educational prospects?
  • What impact does the psychosocial well-being of children have on their learning, and how can these needs best be met in order to help them learn?
  • How can the specific educational needs of different groups of displaced people be addressed? For example, how can education providers ensure that disability, gender, language, ethnicity, and more are not barriers to equal educational opportunities?
  • How can youth who have missed out on education and training access what they have missed as children? What contribution can Accelerated Learning Programmes make?
    What opportunities are there for early childhood development in displacement? What practices are promising?
  • Are new forms and uses of technology – including distance learning – filling any gaps in educational provision, whether as interim measures or for the longer term? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of refugee children studying the curriculum – and in the language – of the host country?
  • How can education in countries of origin, countries of first asylum, and resettlement countries best address certification, validation and equivalency issues relating to learners and teachers?
  • How are teacher qualifications, professional development, salaries and well-being addressed in displacement?
  • What is the role of peace education programmes to address social cohesion in displacement and in the case of return?
  • In what ways are formal and non-formal education coordinated and linked, from the perspectives of learners and systems?
  • What role do school feeding programmes have in supporting education provision?
    What examples are there of good practice in a) joined-up humanitarian and development education planning and b) joined-up refugee and IDP response coordination mechanisms, including, but not limited to, the Education Cluster)?
  • How can local education authorities and humanitarian actors best coordinate their responses?
  • What are the main challenges for education in displacement that hinder progress toward global goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals, and how might these be tackled?
    How are the INEE Minimum Standards in Education used?
  • What are the implications of initiatives such as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, the Global Compacts, the Global Partnership for Education and the Education Cannot Wait Fund for education funding and programming?
  • How can the research community support the humanitarian and development communities to produce and harness effective and reliable evidence, both for the short-term needs of programme design and delivery in complex environments, and the long-term needs of effective decision making by governments?

Please note that when we use the term ‘displaced’ we are referring to both internally displaced children/youth and refugee children/youth.

Maximum length: 2,500 words.

Deadline for submission of articles: 15th October 2018

If you are interested in contributing:

  • send a brief outline of your proposed article to the Editors at fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk so that they can advise on suitability
  • consult the guidelines before beginning to write your article
  • ensure your article complies with the submission requirements before submitting the article. The editors will be unable to accept any article that does not comply with these requirements.

FMR welcome articles on other subjects relating to forced migration for consideration for publication in the ‘general articles’ section of the issue.

Note: FMR is not linked to EENET so please contact the FMR editors directly with any queries.

EENET’s teacher training videos – more translated subtitles

EENET’s video-based teacher training resource – “An Inclusive Day: Building foundations for learner-centred, inclusive education” – is available online with subtitles.

We’re gradually adding subtitles in more languages. So far you can watch the films on YouTube with the following subtitles:

Arabic
English
French
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swahili

We will soon add Dari and Ukrainian.

We’d love to add even more languages. If your organisation could help to translate the subtitles into another language, or if you could help fund a translation, please do contact us.

 

Female teacher signing to children standing around her