A teacher teaching a blind student. Image by Chris Del Santo, via Pexels (Free to use).
By Wasiu Akintunde, Imoleayo Oritse-tsemaye Daramola and Saheed Akintunde
Across the African continent, students with disabilities face severe disadvantages in academic assessments due to poor infrastructure, weak policy enforcement, and a lack of structured disability support services (SDS). Areport published by the Guardian newspaper on Monday, October 2024, details the experience of Nigerian artistJoy Eseoghene Odiete, whose child was born with cerebral palsy, leaving her feeling abandoned.
Her story captures the difficulties thousands of parents across the African continent face when trying to find inclusive schools, medical help, and financial aid for their children's education. Though many African nations have disability laws in place, enforcement is still weak, and families are often left to deal with these challenges alone. Children with disabilities will continue to face systemic barriers that hinder their academic success and future opportunities.
According to theWorld Health Organization, more than 1.3 billion individuals are affected by some kind of disability — about 16 percent of the global population. It is possible that up to one in five of those individuals may develop major impairments. And on average, people with disabilities are poorer than those who come from families without impairments. They often have lower levels of employment and incomes, as well as greater rates of poverty, and their health is typically worse. The incidence of disability and theways in which it affects a wide variety of development outcomes are often more prevalent in poorer nations.
As advocates of the UN'ssustainable development goal 4, the commitment to globally accessible education for all, we are concerned about these discrepancies and how they might affect generations of young children. How can we expect these young children to thrive when their unique identities are met with bias and exclusion? Will they ever feel truly accepted and supported in the classroom, or will they be left to navigate a system that was never designed with their needs in mind? Are we prepared to invest in creating inclusive environments, or will we continue to overlook the challenges they face?
An academic testing centre is a designated area in which students, particularly those with disabilities, can take exams in a supportive and accommodating environment. Some countries, such as the United States, establish academic testing centres to be in compliance with laws and policies that protect the rights of students with disabilities, such as theAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA). There are substantial disparities in the availability of these facilities in Africa.
Some Nigerian and Ghanaian Student Associations at Texas Tech University in the United States shared their views regarding these disparities: The response shows that only a small fraction of African institutions have inclusive educational infrastructure to accommodate students with disabilities; most of the small fraction comes from private institutions. It is now said that private institutions are better financed than government institutions or possess more resources than the government.
Why Africa struggles to provide inclusive academic centres
Although disability rights are enshrined in law across much of Africa, the implementation of these laws is notoriously weak. A2022 African Disability Rights Yearbook study found that 90 percent of exam centres lack wheelchair ramps, elevators, or automatic doors.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) requires states to provide inclusive education at all levels. However, African states often fail to comply with this.
While theBasic Education Act of Kenya (2013) mandates inclusive education; nevertheless,in 2022, 78 percentof children with dyslexia, ADHD, and processing disorders undertook exams without additional time or assistance, adversely affecting their academic performance.
A report by UNICEF shows that governments and funding agencies struggle to reach children with disabilities due to a lack of accurate data. Without outside aid, most families in the Eastern and Southern Africa Region (ESAR) cannot afford assistive devices beyond basic mobility aids due to financial constraints in healthcare and education.
Furthermore, numerous educational institutions lack ramps, elevators, accessible restrooms and the provision of assistive technologies for students with disabilities. Infrastructural inadequacy may be classified as a facet of poverty, since students with impairments need specialized facilities.
The African Development Bank estimates that Africa has an annual infrastructure finance deficit of USD 130 to USD 108 billion. This deficiency has trickled down to educational institutions, where insufficient planning has resulted in poorly equipped facilities to accommodate students with impairments.
Further exacerbating the problem are myths and cultural ideas in African society that promote discriminatory attitudes toward students with disabilities.
Road to a more inclusive future
Considering our experience with the suboptimal execution of policy suggestions in Africa, we shall categorize the remedies into two main groups: solutions with limited financing and adequate financing.
Africans are not a monolithic group; they come from diverse backgrounds, cultures, languages, religions, and socioeconomic statuses. These various traits and identities do not exist in isolation. Instead, they intersect and combine in unique ways, shaping an individual’s overall experience. In the classroom setting, these intersecting identities can result in distinct challenges and biases that may affect students with disabilities.
Students in Africa have long been excluded or faced bias for a wide range of characteristics, such as socioeconomic position, gender, racial/ethnic origin, language, history of migration or displacement, HIV status, gender identity, and sexual orientation. It will take more than simply having enough schools and facilities to ensure students with disabilities have equal educational opportunities. Collaborating with schools and communities to address bullying, stigma, and discrimination is essential — as is guaranteeing their involvement in education and the advancement of the country as a whole.
One way to do this would be to establish inclusive academic centres for students with disabilities in Africa. Students could access measures such as extra note-taking, extended time for in-class assignments, and designated examination rooms in such facilities.
In addition, there needs to be public campaigns to change cultural attitudes and views around disabilities.
While this may seem to be a straightforward answer, it requires much effort to provide a conducive environment for students with extra challenges. This will, in some ways, be an investment into the future, as in addition to assisting students to learn, it also generates numerous sustainable career possibilities for professionals in the industry.
Additionally, students with disabilities must be provided with funding schemes to encourage their enrollment in inclusive educational institutions.
Our observations indicate that an increasing number of pupils with disabilities in Africa are exploited as beggars, which is very distressing for parents to see their children relegated to such a fate from the outset of their lives.
Consequently, if scholarships may be allocated to them, it is essential to maintain comprehensive data that monitors all children with disabilities since this is another deficiency that complicates the distribution of scholarships to all eligible children with disabilities.
Public campaigns are necessary to transform societal attitudes and perceptions regarding disability. To promote diversity, educational institutions must offer sensitivity training and programs to their educators and administrators. To guarantee that pupils with disabilities feel integrated into the system, African governments must prioritize special rights by articulating and pursuing societal objectives, as well as by considering all postulates and assumptions that are inherent in special rights.
In conclusion, a significant component of an inclusive academic system is the utilization of advanced technology. Screen readers, braille keyboards, and speech-to-text software are among the assistive technologies that can significantly enhance the accessibility of written content for students with disabilities. Oral examinations may be necessary for writing exams, as not all individuals can put pen to paper.
This is a call to action to African governments, lawmakers, educators, and other stakeholders, who must commit to establishing inclusive academic testing centres to ensure that children with disabilities have equitable educational opportunities. Therefore, by acting now, we might build an educational system that leaves no child behind, regardless of disability. This includes the enforcement of disability-friendly rules, the augmentation of money for assistive technology, and the training of educators to implement necessary modifications.