The majority of children with disabilities (CWDs) in low and middle income countries have no access to schooling, remaining a marginalised group globally. Research that draws together the multiple challenges that these children face is vital to achieving the 2030 Agenda, which moves towards addressing the needs of CWDs.
This research investigates intersections between gender, disability and education experienced by children in primary and secondary schools in Kambia District, Sierra Leone. The Capability Approach is used as an analysis tool, focusing on the lived experiences of individual CWDs. Ninety one school-going and out-of-school CWDs were interviewed in 2014. The findings reveal gender-related social pressures, which create difficulties in CWD’s educational experiences. These pressures include financial challenges, parental and teacher attitudes, social participation, sexual abuse, and early pregnancy. Difficulties vary between boys and girls, and are often more inhibiting for girls. Some out-of-school boys with disabilities were creative in accessing learning in other ways, for example, one boy did farm work to save money for school fees and attended school while he could pay the fees before working again. Another boy taught himself using his brother’s textbook. Conversely, girls with disabilities were repeatedly told they were ‘too stupid’ to understand anything, regardless of the nature of their impairment. Several girls with disabilities dropped out of school after falling pregnant. Both girls and boys with disabilities experienced sexual abuse, and several also experienced being locked alone in rooms.
This presentation will also show how a local disabled persons’ organisation and Children in Crisis used the research findings to make informed interventions. These included inclusive education modules in teacher training and infrastructural modifications to schools. Such interventions provide models which can enable practitioners to reduce inequalities in education outcomes and so disrupt cycles of marginalisation.
