As we come to the end of child protection week, the daily headlines remind us of our education system’s responsibility to do more to ensure the safety and security of our children in schools. Over the past few months, we have seen the death of another young learner falling in a pit latrine, the South African Human Rights Commission holding public hearings into the deaths of 3 learners in a special school hostel fire and countless reports of knife attacks, gang fights and ongoing corporal punishment in schools. Violence in schools is a significant barrier to learning and is one that effects an alarming number of South African children. Inclusive Education South Africa was visiting a school in Cape Town during exams when shots rang out. Learners screamed in terror…
When President Cyril Ramaphosa presented his first State of the Nation address in Parliament on February 16, he called up the memory of the recently deceased music legend Hugh Masekela and invited South Africans to “lend a hand”. Social media was alive with requests for the president to #SendMe, in response to this moving call. Unfortunately, children with disabilities, their parents and disability rights activists have not received Ramaphosa’s promises with equal optimism. We have become numb to winning slogans and passing references to children with disabilities’ plight in political speeches. We have also learnt through bitter experience that no slogan or symbolic gesture can replace the systematic overhaul of the basic education system that is required to ensure an inclusive education for all children. To continue reading the article as…
We continue to attend and represent Inclusive Education at Roundtable discussions. We have collaborated with the Catholic Parliamentary Liason Office (CPLO) by co-hosting a roundtable discussion on learner drop-out in schools and presented at their round table on Children with Disabilities in Early Childhood Development (ECD)
One of our most significant achievements in the advocacy at IESA in this past year was IESA's coordination of and participation in the drafting of a report to the United Nations Committee no the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). http://www.included.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-UNCRPD-Report.pdf Our report was a response to the Government of South Africa's (GOSA) report to the CRPD on the implementation of among others, Article 24, Inclusive Education, of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Ten authors from the disability, academic and civil society sectors contributed to the report. The process was informed by Robyn Beere's participation in a regional workshop towards the ratification of and reporting under the UN CRPD in commemoration of its 10th Anniversary in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2016. We hosted a…
