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179 Education For All Fast Track Initiative, “Joint Appraisal Document,” 2010, http://issuu.com/efa-fti/docs/np-ssrp-jad082109-cln/48?mode=a_p (accessed June 16, 2011), p. 96. 180 Human Rights Watch interview with Ashok Jairu, Executive Director, National Network for Social Welfare - Nepal, Mahendranagar, April 3, 2011. Human Rights Watch interview with Jaya Prasad Lamsal, Inclusive Education Section, Ministry of Education, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011. No matter if you are talking about the blind, children with intellectual disabilities, wheelchair users. In hilly areas, children need to walk one or two hours to reach school. This is just not possible for wheelchair users.181 Some parents raised the concern that many schools have no gates or other boundaries. Parents of children with intellectual or developmental disabilities who are quite active and do not understand danger were reluctant to send their children to schools without boundaries.182 The Nepal government should provide a safe school environment for all children, including children with disabilities, particularly if the absence of such an environment effectively keeps children from attending school. Denied Admission [My son] was admitted to a general school when he was 10. He would give trouble, spit, beat other children, run around. Then the teacher told me politely, “We tried our best but your son cannot cope.” I came back home and cried.183 - Minu, mother of an 18-year-old boy with cerebral palsy who now attends a day care center for children with an intellectual disability, Kathmandu, March 2011 International laws expressly prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability.184 Importantly, both the CRC and the CRPD require states to take steps to eliminate discrimination by not only state actors, but also private actors, including any person, organization, or private enterprise. The 2007 Interim Constitution allows the government to adopt special policies on the basis of “positive discrimination” for persons with disability, among other groups.185 Government policy also requires that schools must accept children with disabilities.186 However, in practice, public and private schools reject children with disabilities. A senior 1  81 Human Rights Watch interview with Shudarson Subedi, Advocate, Disabled Human Rights Centre, Kathmandu, March 29, 2011.
182 Human Rights Watch interview with Kamala Chatoud, mother of Bupesh, 10 year-old boy with Down Syndrome, Dhangadi, April 6, 2011. 183 Interview with Minu Bhatta, mother of an 18-year-old boy with cerebral palsy, Kathmandu, March 30, 2011. 184 CRPD, art. 5. CRC, art. 2. Furthermore, students with disabilities have the right to non-discriminatory access to education. CADE, art. 1, 4. 185 United Nations Development Programme, “The Interim Constitution of Nepal, 2063 (2007),” 2008, http://www.ccd.org.np/new/resources/interim.pdf (accessed May 31, 2011), section 35(14). 186 Human Rights Watch interview with Ganesh Paudel, Department of Education, Kathmandu, April 7, 2011. Ministry of Education official acknowledged, “In the private schools, we can say that it is not strictly followed.”187 Human Rights Watch documented several cases in which children with disabilities were denied admission to both public and private schools, in both general classes and resource classes.188 In several instances, school officials told parents of children with intellectual or developmental disabilities that they could not cope with their children in school. The mother of a boy with a developmental disability told us that she took her son to many schools for children with disabilities. Because her son does not sit still and cannot express himself when he needs to use the toilet, the school said they could not take him: “There was no point in taking him to a general school.”189 Parents said that school officials denied admission to their children on the grounds that other children would learn from their habits and behavior.190 The father of an 11-year-old boy with autism said: We tried to take him to one general school, but they didn’t accept him. Then we tried another general school. Same experience. They told us they could not handle this boy.191 An official in the Ministry of Education also admitted that there are also cases where deaf children are denied a seat in general school.192 Segregated and Inferior Quality of Education Until I was 11, I just sat at home. I wanted to go to school with my brothers and sisters. They started school earlier—when they were six or seven years old. Even if I told my father, he would say again and again that I couldn’t walk. My father was told by a teacher [in a resource class for children with
intellectual disabilities]: ‘we’ll teach your daughter.’ People in the community said this school was for mentally retarded children, not for a child like me. - Balkumari, a young woman with a physical disability that limits the movement of one side of her body, Damouli, Midwestern region, April 2011 The government promotes an inclusive education system, yet supports a system of segregated resource classes and separate schools for children with disabilities without a clear plan for how to integrate these children, particularly with intellectual or developmental disabilities, into mainstream schools. Special classes for children with disabilities are often inadequately staffed, have no flexible curriculum and limited teaching materials, causing them to receive an inferior quality of education compared to other children. Even the principal of one of the first special schools in Nepal said: In comparison to those for other children, the facilities provided by the government for children with disabilities are very low. These schools are not equal to other [general] schools.193 At another special school for children with disabilities in Kathmandu, the school does not even have sufficient water for sanitation. The vice principal told Human Rights Watch: School is going poorly day-to-day. I have told the president 10 times, but he tells me to keep quiet and he has no time.... The toilet has no water. We are buying water from a donation.194 Lack of Adequately Trained Teachers Teachers say to the students in a resource class for intellectually disabled children, “You are in grade one, you are in grade two,” but they are all in the same class. Teachers who are committed want to do good but don’t know how. - Usha Titikshu, SANGYA,195 Kathmandu, May 2011
Although the 2006 National Policy and Plan of Action on Disability includes teacher training, most teachers are not adequately trained to manage children with disabilities, thereby significantly impeding their right to education.196 The government provides special education teachers (either in resource classes or in special schools) with one month to 45 days of training in special education, yet not all such teachers are trained.197 For example, teachers in Sirjana Deaf School in Pokhara (mid-western region) do not receive any sign language training from the government. A local deaf organization provides four months of training for the teachers.198 Staff at NGO- or parent-run day care centers for children with intellectual or developmental disabilities do not receive any training from the government.199 The general education system is intended to integrate children with disabilities (particularly deaf and blind) into mainstream schools.200 While the limited training general school teachers receive is a useful first step, the government should be doing more to give all teachers the adequate skills for teaching diverse students.201 For example, teachers in mainstream schools do not receive any sign language training. This is particularly problematic for deaf students who join a mainstream school after completing Class 5 in a special school or resource class. In most schools, since teachers are accustomed to the lecture method of teaching, there is a strong need for training of teachers on teaching methodologies that are effective for
diverse learners.202 Teachers in classes for students with intellectual or developmental disabilities also expressed the challenges teaching such children through current methodologies: “If we give pressure to read, the children come to beat us.”203 There is also a lack of motivation and awareness among special education teachers.204 Balkumari, who attended a resource class for children with intellectual or developmental disabilities, told us that her teacher would often sleep in class. Instead, the caretaker, who receives no training from the government, would teach them the alphabet. “I didn’t feel like I learned anything there,” she said.205 The National Center for Education Development (NCED) is the entity within the Ministry of Education that is responsible for teacher training. The NCED’s Director Laxmiram Paudel, told Human Rights Watch, “Teachers [in mainstream schools] have general knowledge of special needs children, but it is not enough.”206 According to Arun Tiwari, the deputy director of the Special Education Section in the Ministry of Education and chief of the section on inclusive education, the NCED has not developed a training package on how to integrate children with disabilities in the classroom “because we already have the concept that disabled children are enrolled in resource classes or special schools.”207 He acknowledged that such training for general teachers would be important for children with disabilities who enroll in general schools. Santosh, a deaf student at Sirjana Deaf School, had previously attended a general school. He told Human Rights Watch: When I went to school with hearing kids, the teachers would write on the board and didn’t pay attention to us. We only copied from the students sitting next to us. I didn’t learn anything. I didn’t have any friends. No one came to interact with me.208
One of the biggest challenges to creating an effective inclusive education environment is teaching the teachers to teach differently. Disability experts argue that if you teach different types of children, modifying the instruction and the curriculum will challenge those children who are more advanced and be relevant for those children who need more support. This approach not only benefits children with disabilities, but differentiated instruction can reach a broader range of students.209 Inflexible Curriculum and Evaluation System Although the 2003 UNICEF study noted that the school curriculum is not flexible and does not meet the learning needs of children with different abilities, the government has failed to modify the curriculum accordingly.210 As a result, teachers of children with intellectual or developmental disabilities often make up their own curriculum and lessons plans, focusing on teaching daily life skills. One resource class teacher explained: I teach those with interest in reading and writing. Those who don’t, I provide blocks for playing. Also we do physical exercises. We don’t use the curriculum from the school. Instead I use what I learned in the training as the curriculum. We give them only practical knowledge.211 Children with disabilities should also be assessed differently.212 For example, some experts argue that students with disabilities should be offered alternative or modified school leaving certificates to increase graduation rates and help students feel more successful. Modifications may include reducing or modifying graduation requirements, revising performance criteria, providing accommodations in coursework and on exams, and altering curricula.213 Multiple school completion options are considered “a reasonable and fair approach to accommodating the diversity in student abilities without diluting the standard diploma.”214 2 09 Human Rights Watch interview with Diane Richler, Past President of Inclusion International, New York, May 10, 2011.
210 UNICEF, “Inclusive Nepal,” http://www.unicef.org/rosa/InclusiveNep.pdf (accessed March 6, 2011), p. 13. 211 Human Rights Watch interview with Lakshmi Joshi, Resource Teacher, Mahendranagar Secondary School, Kanchanpur district, April 4, 2011. 212 Human Rights Watch interview with Birendra Pokharel, National Federation for the Disabled Nepal, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011. 213 National Center on Secondary Education and Transition, “Diploma Options for Students with Disabilities,” February 2005, http://www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=1928 (accessed June 13, 2011). 214 Ibid. While reasonable accommodations215 have been made in Nepal to give blind students extra time for exams, similar modifications for deaf children and children with intellectual disabilities have not yet been made. For example, in secondary school, deaf students automatically lose 20 percent of their exam score because they are not able to take the oral exam that involves listening to a cassette and answering questions.216 One parent of a child with autism said: If a child with an intellectual disability learns to wear clothes, then that is
Resource classes are intended as a transition to mainstream schools. However, because of the inflexible curriculum and evaluation system, children in classes designated for “mentally retarded children” often stay in the same resource class for years.218 Children in these classes range in age from 6 to 17, some are even in their 20s. Many teachers also do not have enough or appropriate teaching materials to facilitate education for children with disabilities. For example, due to regular changes in the curriculum, Braille books are delayed because of the extra time and expenses of updating, printing and distribution.
Despite the government’s emphasis on inclusive classrooms, the older school system based on special schools and resource classes for children with disabilities continues to operate without a clear plan on how to integrate the children, particularly with intellectual or developmental disabilities into mainstream schools.219 In effect, the government-run special schools (for blind, deaf, and intellectually and physically disabled children) form a parallel segregated school system. 2  15 “’Reasonable accommodation’ means necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms[.]” CRPD, art. 2.
216 Human Rights Watch interview with Birendra Pokharel, President, National Federation for the Disabled Nepal, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011. 217 Human Rights Watch interview with Mukunda Dahal, founder of a day care center for children with developmental and intellectual disabilities and father of a 13-year-old with autism, Kathmandu, March 30, 2011. 218 Human Rights Watch interview with Birendra Pokharel, President, National Federation for the Disabled Nepal, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011. Human Rights Watch interview with Arun Tiwari, Deputy Director, Department of Education, and Chief of the Inclusive Education Section, Ministry of Education, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011. 219 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, “DANIDA Assessment: 4 Pilot Processes Reviewed,” 2004, http://www.um.dk/Publikationer/Danida/English/Evaluations/EvalutionNepal2004/annex4.asp, (accessed May 26, 2011). This parallel system involves, for the most part, residential living.220 Only students with disabilities attend special schools or resource classes. While on the one hand, this system gives children living in rural areas an opportunity to attend school, it requires children with disabilities to live separately from their families, often hours away from their homes. Uprooting children from their families and communities to live in a hostel at the school leads to a “host of problems and dangers including lack of supervision, physical neglect, opportunities for abuse, alienation from their parents, etc.”221 For example, there is only one caretaker for up to 10 children with disabilities living in a residential facility. The Deputy Director of the Ministry of Education confirmed to Human Rights Watch that caretakers receive no training.222 Yet this person is with the children all day in the classroom as a support person for the resource class teacher. At night, she is the only one with them.223 The government’s vision of inclusive education includes the notion that children with disabilities may have a separate building, residential facility and specially trained teachers, but located in or near a general school where they can interact with other children.224 In their view, this system would allow other children to learn how to interact with children with disabilities. However, Human Rights Watch found that, in government-run special schools and resource classes, children with disabilities have little to no interaction with other children. Teachers explained that there is “no link” between children with disabilities and other children and that children with disabilities “are not able to understand.”225 Most parents of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (such as autism) want their children to attend mainstream schools. As one parent explained:
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96 As of 2006, some 2,000 primary teachers have received awareness and basic training about special education. Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare, “National Policy and Plan of Action on Disability,” 2006, http://rcrdnepa.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/national-policy-and-plan-of-action2006-eng.pdf (accessed June 17, 2011).
20 In fact, government scholarships for school are only given to residential students. Human Rights Watch interview with Jaya Prasad Lamsal, Inclusive Education Section, Ministry of Education, Kathmandu, April 2, 2011.