Tens of Thousands of Children in Nepal are Excluded from School Because They Have a Disability
More children than you’d expect who go to Nepal’s Adarsha Saula Yubak Secondary School want to work in “the bakery cafe.”
“I want to be a waiter when I grow up,” 12-year-old “Suresh” told Human Rights Watch. “I would get a job in the bakery café … In the restaurant they understand sign language and in other places they do not understand me. One of the staff took me to a zoo and to bakery café.”
The education Suresh is getting is the key to make his dream come true. Like many of his classmates, Suresh is deaf, but unlike thousands of other children in Nepal, he is lucky to be at school.
Tens of thousands of children in Nepal are excluded from school because they have a disability. Those that do attend school are often taught in segregated “resource classes” that isolate them.
Lack of trained teachers, limited access to resources like braille or audiobooks — essential tools to ensure children who are blind can fully follow classroom activities — and even being unable to get around the building safely all contribute to children not going to school or not getting the education they deserve once they get there.
Some schools, like Suresh’s, are fighting to make a difference. But they are dealing with a lack of government support, despite several new policies designed to promote disability rights that have passed in recent years, but that aren’t being fully enforced.
“In our school we have 63 students with different kinds of disabilities,” Saroj Bhakta Acharya, principal at Adarsha Saula Yubak Secondary School, which is in Lalitpur district, told Human Rights Watch, “But the government provides us with only one resource teacher.” Very few teachers are properly trained on how to include children with disabilities in their classroom, so schools that enroll children with disabilities need specially-trained resources teachers to help them.
“Our infrastructure is very old, it is not disability-friendly. We’re trying to change the infrastructure to be disability friendly,” he said, adding that they need more government financial support to make this possible.
In 2017, Nepal adopted the Disability Rights Act and an Inclusive Education Policy for Persons with Disabilities. The policy says that children should be able to study, without discrimination, in their own communities, but also allows for educating children with disabilities separately.
Yet very few mainstream public schools enroll children with disabilities. Out of more than 30,000 schools in Nepal, just 380 have “resource classes,” where children are grouped with others with a similar disability.
In the schools Human Rights Watch visited, children in resource classes ranged in age from 7 to 17, with some even in their 20s. Children often remain in these classes for years, although some may move to mainstream classrooms in the higher grades, with limited support.
The problem with grouping children together according to their disability is that schools may become equipped to handle only one type of need. One school we visited, for example, had a classroom for children with intellectual disabilities, but wasn’t prepared to teach children with visual or hearing disabilities.
Keeping children in the “resource classes” also means that when they get older, they often can’t move on to mainstream education. They either get stuck in the segregated class with children in younger grades, or have to travel many miles away from home to continue their education in specialized schools.
Many schools are also not wheelchair accessible. A principal at one public mainstream school in the Gorkha district in western Nepal said that one former student with a physical disability who used a wheelchair crawled on his hands and knees to get from one classroom to another for the seven years he attended the school.
“The students who interact with different students in regular classes, they benefit themselves and that means society and our school also benefits,” Acharya said.
The children agree, they all wish they could spend more time with their peers:
Sunita, 15
I study in grade 5 … I have never been to a regular class. I want to learn together with others … It is more fun learning together with others. After grade 6, I would want to study together with friends. I [would] get a chance to teach sign language to other kids in the regular class and I can communicate with them. I want to be a teacher when I grow up because I want to teach children with hearing disabilities.
Subarna, 18
I like attending regular class. I learned a lot when I attended regular class. When I was in resource class I was shy to speak to students without disability. Now I feel confident. Students without disability come to learn sign language with us. It feels good. — Subarna, 18
Maya, 16
I want to be a waitress because I have been to a bakery café and people there understand me. A volunteer took me to a zoo first and took me to eat in a bakery café. I like to study together with other children because I can develop language skills and others are inspired to learn as well and I get a chance to keep up with the class.
Human Rights Watch Recommendation:
The government should guarantee the right to education of children with disabilities, and ensure schools are accessible for all children, that children with disabilities are taught in mainstream classrooms, and that all teachers are trained to provide inclusive education.
Related: Offer Deaf Children Education in Sign Language (Accessible)
For more on barriers to inclusive education in Nepal, you can read HRW’s research here.
