Rights of People with Disabilities

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Rights of People with Disabilities

• An Introduction for Teachers

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Rights of People with Disabilities

• An Introduction for Teachers

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Agenda

• Facts regarding people with disabilities
• Overview of Convention on the Rights of People
  with Disabilities
• Teachers obligations under the Convention
• Inclusive Education

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Exercise

• How many children with disabilities have you
  taught? What disabilities did they have?
• What barriers did those children face?

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• Children with disabilities are among the most
  stigmatized and excluded of all the worlds
  children.  Misunderstanding and fear of children
  with disabilities result in their marginalization
  within their family, community, at school, and in
  the wider society. The discrimination they suffer
  leads to poor health, affects their self-esteem,
  limits their access to education and puts them at
  higher risk for violence, abuse and neglect.
  UNICEF

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• Research indicates that violence against children
  with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least
  1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled
  peers.

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• 90 of children with disabilities worldwide dont
  go to school.
• There are no accurate statistics for South
  Africa, but we do know that most public schools
  arent set up to handle children with
  disabilities but only 1 in 13 children with
  disabilities are in special schools.
• According to a study by Disability KAR, in South
  Africa, black children with disabilities
  primarily due to poverty and discrimination can
  not participate in education.

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• Many children with disabilities dont get the
  education that they need to be successful in the
  job market.
• It is estimated that 18.6 of people with
  disabilities are working, compared to 35 of the
  general population.

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Social Welfare Approach

• According to the United Nations, being denied
  the opportunities that would enable them to be
  self-sufficient, most persons with disabilities
  resort to the kindness or charity of others.
• The traditional social welfare approach to
  disability, which viewed the needs of people with
  disabilities as a problem for charities and
  government aid.

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Rights-based Approach

• Many societies have moved away from considering
  persons with disabilities as objects of charity
  and pity, by acknowledging that society itself is
  disabling.
• In other words, the problem is not with the
  individual, it is with the society that is set up
  so that the individual cannot be successful.
• We now recognize that people with disabilities
  have the right to live in a world that
  accommodates their differences.

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Defining Disability

• The UN Convention uses the rights-based approach
  to disability.
• It defines persons with disabilities as persons
  who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual
  or sensory impairments which, in interaction with
  various barriers, may hinder their full and
  effective participation in society on an equal
  basis with others.

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• The Convention was adopted on 31 December, 2006.
  
• South Africa signed the Convention on 30 March,
  2007 the first day that the Convention was open
  for signature
• South Africa signed the Optional Protocol, which
  provides certain enforcement and monitoring
  mechanisms.
• The Convention will enter into force when it has
  been ratified by 20 countries.

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Exercise

• What rights do people with disabilities have?

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UN Convention on the Rights of People with
Disabilities (2006)

• Education
• Accessibility
• Life
• Equal recognition before the law
• Access to justice
• Liberty and security of person
• Freedom from torture or cruel, inhuman or
  degrading treatment or punishment
• Freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse
• The integrity of the person
• Liberty of movement
• Nationality
• Living independently

• Inclusion in the community
• Personal mobility
• Freedom of expression and opinion
• Access to information
• Privacy
• Respect for home and the family
• Equal access to health and health care
• Habilitation and rehabilitation
• Work and employment
• Adequate standard of living and social protection
  
• Participation in political and public life
• Participation in cultural life, recreation,
  leisure and sport

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UN Convention on the Rights of People with
Disabilities (2006)

• These rights are not unique to people with
  disabilities. Everyone has them. Many are
  already guaranteed by the South African
  Constitution and by other human rights treaties.
• There is a separate treaty because the needs of
  people with disabilities are different, even
  though the rights are the same.
• The rights are indivisible and interconnected.
• Each right facilitates the exercise of other
  rights.

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Teachers obligations

• There are two areas of the Convention for which
  teachers are primarily responsible
• Article 8(2)(b) Teach respect for the rights of
  people with disabilities.
• Article 24 The right to education.

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Exercise

• What rights do people with disabilities have that
  are easier to for them to exercise if the right
  to education is respected?
• What rights do people with disabilities have that
  are easier to exercise if all students are taught
  to respect people with disabilities and the
  rights of people with disabilities?

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Teaching Respect

• Article 8(2)(b) requires Fostering at all
  levels of the education system, including in all
  children from an early age, an attitude of
  respect for the rights of persons with
  disabilities

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What to do

• Games and exercises for the class. There are
  many available.
• When a disabled student joins your class, talk to
  the class about the student and his or her needs.
  Some NGOs offer training on how to do this.
• Make sure your class knows that bullying is not
  acceptable.

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Right to Education (Art. 24)

• 1. States Parties recognize the right of persons
  with disabilities to education. With a view to
  realizing this right without discrimination and
  on the basis of equal opportunity, States Parties
  shall ensure an inclusive education system at all
  levels and life long learning directed to
• (a) The full development of human potential and
  sense of dignity and self-worth, and the
  strengthening of respect for human rights,
  fundamental freedoms and human diversity (b)
  The development by persons with disabilities of
  their personality, talents and creativity, as
  well as their mental and physical abilities, to
  their fullest potential(c) Enabling persons
  with disabilities to participate effectively in a
  free society.

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Right to Education (Art. 24)

• 2. In realizing this right, States Parties shall
  ensure that
• Persons with disabilities are not excluded from
  the general education system on the basis of
  disability, and that children with disabilities
  are not excluded from free and compulsory primary
  education, or from secondary education, on the
  basis of disability
• Persons with disabilities can access an
  inclusive, quality and free primary education and
  secondary education on an equal basis with others
  in the communities in which they live
• Reasonable accommodation of the individuals
  requirements is provided
• (d) Persons with disabilities receive the support
  required, within the general education system, to
  facilitate their effective education
• (e) Effective individualized support measures are
  provided in environments that maximize academic
  and social development, consistent with the goal
  of full inclusion.

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Right to Education (Art. 24)

• 3. States Parties shall enable persons with
  disabilities to learn life and social development
  skills to facilitate their full and equal
  participation in education and as members of the
  community. To this end, States Parties shall take
  appropriate measures, including
• Facilitating the learning of Braille, alternative
  script, augmentative and alternative modes, means
  and formats of communication and orientation and
  mobility skills, and facilitating peer support
  and mentoring
• (b) Facilitating the learning of sign language
  and the promotion of the linguistic identity of
  the deaf community
• (c) Ensuring that the education of persons, and
  in particular children, who are blind, deaf or
  deafblind, is delivered in the most appropriate
  languages and modes and means of communication
  for the individual, and in environments which
  maximize academic and social development.

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Right to Education (Art. 24)

• 4. In order to help ensure the realization of
  this right, States Parties shall take appropriate
  measures to employ teachers, including teachers
  with disabilities, who are qualified in sign
  language and/or Braille, and to train
  professionals and staff who work at all levels of
  education. Such training shall incorporate
  disability awareness and the use of appropriate
  augmentative and alternative modes, means and
  formats of communication, educational techniques
  and materials to support persons with
  disabilities.
• 5. States Parties shall ensure that persons with
  disabilities are able to access general tertiary
  education, vocational training, adult education
  and lifelong learning without discrimination and
  on an equal basis with others. To this end,
  States Parties shall ensure that reasonable
  accommodation is provided to persons with
  disabilities.

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South African Constitution

• Everyone has the right to a basic education.

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Exercise

• How can you and your class benefit from the
  inclusion of children with disabilities?

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Inclusive Education

• Under the Convention, children with disabilities
  have a right to inclusive education.
• What we have accomplished in human rights is
  the complete conceptual switch stating that no
  child should be forced to adapt to education. The
  principle requires compete reversal. Education
  should adapt to the best interests of each
  child. Dr. Katarina Tomasevski, Special
  Rapporteur on the Right to Education, United
  Nations Commission on Human Rights, May 2004
• White Paper 6 on Education also mandates
  inclusive education for about 70 of children
  with disabilities.

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Inclusive Education

• The right to inclusive education means that
  children with disabilities have the right to go
  to normal schools.
• Inclusive education means more than
  mainstreaming. It means creating a system that
  focuses on ensuring that every learners needs
  are met, instead of focusing on fitting the
  learner into the system.
• We dont have normal kids and special kids.
  We have a diverse population of learners who
  learn in various ways.

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Inclusion v. Mainstreaming
Mainstreaming or Integration Inclusion
Mainstreaming is about getting learners to fit into a particular kind of system or integrating them into this existing system. Inclusion is about recognising and respecting the differences among all learners and building on the similarities.
Mainstreaming is about giving some learners extra support so that they can fit in or be integrated into the normal classroom routine. Learners are assessed by specialists who diagnose and prescribe technical interventions, such as the placement of learners and learning in programmes. Inclusion is about supporting all learners, educators and the system as a whole so that the full range of learning needs can be met. The focus is on teaching and learning actors, with the emphasis on the development of good teaching strategies that will be of benefit to all learners.
Mainstreaming and Integration focus on changes that need to take place in learners so that they can 'fit in'. Here the focus in on the learner. Inclusion focuses on overcoming barriers in the system that prevent it from meeting the full range of learning needs. The focus is on the adaptation of and support systems available in the classrooms.
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Exercise

• Think about the barriers at your school. In an
  ideal world, what changes would you make to
  accommodate a student with a visual disability?
• With a hearing disability?
• With a physical disability?
• With a developmental disability?
• With a mental illness?
• What additional considerations are there when
  accommodating a student with multiple
  disabilities?

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Rights of People with Disabilities

• An Introduction for Teachers