1. Rights of People with Disabilities
SAHRC Workshop for Teachers
on the Rights of People for Disabilities
Target Audience:
This workshop is addressed to teachers. It is designed for teachers who primarily teach students without disabilities, but can also be given to teachers focused on disability.
Goals:
Place education of people with disabilities firmly within a human rights context, more particularly the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.
Empower teachers to facilitate access to and enjoyment of human rights by people with disabilities.
Educate teachers regarding the difficulties faced by people with disabilities in order to generate enthusiasm for educating children with disabilities.
Impress upon teachers that they have obligations to teach and to teach respect of students with disabilities.
Before the Workshop Checklist:
Find a disability friendly venue.
Send out invitations.
Arrange for food, if required.
If you are expecting people with sensory disabilities, arrange for sign language interpreters or Braille training materials as required. DeafSA could be approached regarding interpreters. SA National Council for the Blind could be approached regarding Braille materials.
Get the required resources.
Resources Checklist:
Slide projector
Computer
Screen
Handouts (print copies of slides)
Flip chart and pen, if desired
Rights of People with Disabilities
An Introduction for Teachers
Tip: How do I tell if the venue is disability friendly?
Walk from the parking area to the room in which the workshop will be held. Is everything reachable by ramp or elevator? Are the doors wide enough for a wheelchair? How far must persons with disabilities travel to reach the room?
Go to the bathroom. Ensure that the bathroom can be reached without stairs and that there is a large stall with support bars.
If using breakout rooms, walk to the breakout rooms. Insure that all breakout rooms are also accessible and not located too far from the main conference room.
Look for Braille signage.

2. Rights of People with Disabilities
Instructions:
Introduce yourself.
Thank the participants for attending.
Introduce the housekeeping rules. (E.g., cell phones off, allow everyone to speak.)
Give orientation information. (E.g., where the bathrooms are, when there will be breaks.)
Explain that you are from the Human Rights Commission. Tell the audience what SAHRC does, and why it is interested in persons with disabilities.
If the audience isn’t too large, ask the audience members to introduce themselves.
Put the first slide up on the screen.
Explain what will happen during the workshop.
Rights of People with Disabilities
Hello
Explaining what will happen during the workshop:
We are going to talk about the new international agreement on the rights of people with disabilities, the UN Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities.
I hope that you will leave here feeling a lot of pride in your work. You are on the forefront of the human rights struggle and you have an amazing opportunity for forward human rights through your work.
An Introduction for Teachers
Tool: Introductory exercises:
Introductory exercises will make the audience more comfortable, and increase participation throughout the workshop.
In introductions, ask attendees to give their names and the schools they work for. Also, ask the attendees to say how long they have been teaching and whether they have worked with students with disabilities. Note the attendees who have a lot of work experience. This will help you later in the presentation if people aren’t talking you can ask them for input.
In a small group, you can ask them to also tell you something fun. For example, ask for a word that describes how they feel today or the name of a favourite food.

3. Agenda Facts regarding people with disabilities
Instructions:
Tell the audience:
“In this presentation, we are going to begin by talking about some general facts about people with disabilities. Then we are going to talk a little bit about the Convention and the rights that it protects. We’ll focus in on teachers’ specific obligations under the Convention. Then we will wrap up with a discussion about inclusive education.”
Facts regarding people with disabilities
Overview of Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities
Teachers’ obligations under the Convention
Inclusive Education
Goal: The audience should know what to expect from this presentation.

4. Exercise
Instructions:
Tell the audience, “Just so I get a better sense of who’s here, I would like to know how many children with disabilities you have taught and what disabilities those students had.”
Go around the room and have everyone answer.
Then ask for volunteers to tell you what barriers their students faced. If people don’t volunteer, call on them. (“You said that you have taught a number of students in wheel chairs. What problems did those students have?”)
How many children with disabilities have you taught? What disabilities did they have?
What barriers did those children face?
Goal: Get to know your audience. Start the audience thinking about the problems faced by students with disabilities.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can skip the second question on this slide and go directly to the barriers that UNICEF has identified (Slide 5).
Tips for a larger audience:
If your audience is too big to go around the room and have everyone answer the questions, ask for a show of hands.
For example: “Raise your hand if you have ever had a student with disabilities in your class. Keep your hand up if you have had five or more students, Keep your hand up if you have had more than twenty. Keep your hand up if the majority of your students have had disabilities.”
And: “Raise your hand if you have ever had a student who is deaf. Who is blind. Who has a physical disability. Who has a mental disabiltiy.”

5. Instructions:
Tell the audience, “Here’s what UNICEF has to say about the barriers faced by children with disabilities worldwide.”
Read the quote on the slide or ask someone in the audience to do so.
“Children with disabilities are among the most stigmatized and excluded of all the world’s 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
Goal: The audience should feel concern about the circumstances under which children with disabilities live.
Source:
The quote on this slide is from UNICEF, UNICEF welcomes new global Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, available at

6. Instructions:
Read or paraphrase the statement on the slide.
Research indicates that violence against children with disabilities occurs at annual rates at least 1.7 times greater than for their non-disabled peers.
Goal: The audience should feel more concern about the circumstances under which children with disabilities live.
Hit, Punch
Source:
The quote on this slide is from the UN, available at

7. 90% of children with disabilities worldwide don’t go to school.
Instructions:
Read or paraphrase the statement on the slide.
When discussing the second bullet point, include an example of disabled children lost in the system.
Say that the example shows that teachers have a huge challenge to identify these children with disabilities and take care of their needs in addition to everything else that they are doing.
90% of children with disabilities worldwide don’t go to school.
There are no accurate statistics for South Africa, but we do know that most public schools aren’t 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.”
Goal: The audience should feel more concern about the circumstances under which children with disabilities live.
Tool: Example of Disabled Children:
One organization that works on inclusive education told us about a student that they had worked with. When the child was 9 or 10, he still hadn’t learned to read, and the school started trying to figure out why. Finally, someone watched him trying to read and noticed that he was holding the page an inch or so away from his eye. They realized that he had a vision impairment. He hadn’t learned to read because he couldn’t see the page.
Source:
Second bullet: Disability KAR, Situational Analysis and Assessment of Education for Children with Disabilities in Bangladesh, South Asia, East Asia and South Africa, June 2005, p. 32, at

8. Instructions:
Tell the audience that it is really important that they meet this challenge because they know, as teachers, how important education is.
Read or paraphrase the statements on the slide.
Many children with disabilities don’t 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.
Work
Goal: The audience should feel more concern about the circumstances under which children with disabilities live.
Source:
The information in the second bullet point is from ILO, Strategies for Skills Acquisition and Work for People with Disabilities. Synthesis Report: Malawi, South Africa, Zambia. February 2007 p. 7.

9. Social Welfare Approach
Tip for longer workshops:
Skip this slide if you are doing a longer workshop and have already given the “Defining Disability” presentation.
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.
Goal: The audience should understand what is meant by the social welfare approach.
Instructions:
Tell the audience:
This lack of opportunities for people with disabilities has meant that they are often dependent on the charity of others.
This has led to what we call the social welfare approach to disability, where people with disabilities are considered objects of charity instead of people with rights and obligations to society.
Source:
The quote on this slide is from the UN, Disability Handbook, pp. III, IV, available at

10. Rights-based Approach
Tip for longer workshops:
Skip this slide if you are doing a longer workshop and have already given the “Defining Disability” presentation.
“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.
Goal: The audience should understand what is meant by the “rights-based approach” and understand why that approach is important.
Instructions:
Tell the audience:
We as a society have been moving away from this social welfare approach to disability. We’re starting to understand that the problem is not with the person with a disability, it is with the society that doesn’t accommodate his or her differences.
Give examples.
Tool: Examples of the failure to accommodate differences
Physical – “A person in a wheelchair could live a normal life if there were wheelchair access everywhere. The problem is with the buildings and taxis that don’t have wheelchair access.”
Sensory – “A person with a hearing disability could live a normal life if everyone spoke sign language. The problem is that people generally don’t know how to communicate with deaf people.“
Source:
The quote on this slide is from the UN, Disability Handbook, pp. III, IV, available at

11. Defining “Disability”
Tip for longer workshops:
Skip this slide if you are doing a longer workshop and have already given the “Defining Disability” presentation.
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.
Goal: Introduce the audience to the social definition of disability.
Instructions:
Tell the audience:
The UN Convention recognizes that people with disabilities have the right to live in a world that accommodates their differences.
One of the ways it does this through the way it defines disability.
The UN Convention 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.”

12. The Convention was adopted on 31 December, 2006.
Instructions:
Read or paraphrase the information on the slide.
State that South Africa’s early action in signing the Convention and the Optional Protocol show South Africa’s Commitment to the rights of people with disabilities.
Tell the audience that a former Commissioner was even part of the negotiating team.
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.
Goal: The audience should know the status of the Convention and see South Africa’s commitment to protecting the rights of people with disabilities.

13. Exercise What rights do people with disabilities have? Instructions:
Transition. (“Now we are going to talk about the rights protected by the Convention.
Ask people what rights they believe that people with disabilities have.
Record responses on the flipchart, if using. Alternatively, repeat and emphasize the answers. (“Privacy. Yes, that’s exactly right.”)
What rights do people with disabilities have?
Goal: Help the audience internalize the rights of people with disabilities by thinking of those rights themselves. Help the audience realize that people with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise. However, the use of a flip chart and marker to record answers are optional and may enhance the exercise. Use of a flip chart is particularly recommended when the overheads are not in use.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can skip this exercise and go directly to the next slide (slide 13), where you can list the rights on the slide.
Tips to get people talking:
If people aren’t answering, point out that people with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else.
Give suggestions of rights to get people thinking. For example, privacy, health, education, work, political and cultural participation, freedom from violence and torture.
Another way to start people talking is to tell a story, and ask if rights are violated. For example, “Rashida is eleven years old and she has a mental disability. Rashida’s family is so ashamed of her that they keep her locked in their house, and never let her outside. Because of this, Rashida has never been to school. Does Rashida have any rights that are being violated? What rights?” (Education, freedom of movement, right to participate in the community.)

14. UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (2006)
Instructions:
Say: “Many of the rights that we have been talking about are protected by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.”
Mention any rights that did not come up during the foregoing exercise.
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
Goal: Make sure the audience knows what is in the Convention.

15. UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (2006)
Instructions:
Explain that everyone has the rights that are in the Disability Convention. A special treaty was created for people with disabilities, not because their rights are different, but because their needs are different and they were being forgotten.
Explain that the rights are all connected. Give examples.
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.
Goal: Audience should understand that people with disabilities have the same rights as anyone else. Audience should also understand that all the rights are connected.
Example: Interconnected rights
Personal mobility is connected to many of the other rights, because it is easier to exercise these other rights if you are mobile. For example, you have a right to work, but that right is easier to exercise the right to work if you have a way to get to work.
Likewise, the right to work is connected to many other rights. You have the right to a decent standard of living, and that right is easier to exercise if you work.
But also, if you have a decent standard of living, it is easier to get around. So, you see, all these rights are connected.

16. Teachers’ obligations
Instructions:
Tell the audience:
As teachers, they have two big obligations under the convention: 1) to teach children with disabilities, and 2) to teach everyone about children with disabilities and their rights so as to foster tolerance and respect.
Even if they don’t have any children with disabilities in their class, they need to teach their students about the rights of people with disabilities.
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.
Goal: The audience should understand that they have two main obligations under the Convention.

17. Exercise
Instructions:
Tell the audience that their job is very important because education is related to so many other rights. Just like personal mobility and work, education really important to being able to exercise other rights.
Ask the audience to give examples of rights that education facilitates.
Record responses on the flipchart, if using. Alternatively, repeat and emphasize the answers. (“Work. Yes, that’s exactly right.”)
Ask the audience to give you examples of rights that they facilitate by teaching all their students respect.
If using a flipchart, add rights that have not been mentioned. Underline rights that have already been mentioned.
Tell the audience that you hope that they understand from this exercise that education is critical to exercising most of the other rights in the convention.
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?
Goal: Help the audience internalize importance of their role by explaining its significance themselves. Review of the rights discussed already.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise. However, the use of a flip chart and marker to record answers is optional and may enhance the exercise. Use of a flip chart is particularly recommended when the overheads are not in use.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can skip this exercise and simply tell the audience that their role is very important because it makes it possible for people with disabilities to exercise many of their other rights.
Tip: Answers to look for:
Education facilitates basically every other right in the Convention, so people should be creative. For example:
Article 24 facilitates the right to work, because it is easier to get a job if you have an education.
Article 8(2)(b) also facilitates the right to work, because managers are more likely to hire people with disabilities if they were taught respect for people with disabilities and their rights.
Article 24 also facilitates the right to an adequate standard of living because it is easier to do the paperwork to get an ID and a disability grant if you have an education.

18. Teaching Respect
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer. Tell that volunteer to read the slide and tell the rest of the audience what it means.
Ask the volunteer what they can do to teach this respect.
Ask the audience if they have any additional thoughts or examples.
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”
Goal: The audience should understand Article 8(2)(b) and see how it applies to the schools in which they work.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can just paraphrase the Article and move on.
Sample Answers regarding things to do:
Bullying is a huge problem. Push the audience to think of ways that they can reduce bullying.
Try to get the audience to share lesson plans and exercises that they have done with their classes in the past.

19. What to do
Instructions:
Read or paraphrase the information on the slide.
Ask the audience if any of them know of any other useful resources.
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.
Goal: The audience should know that there are references that they can use to get information on how to talk to their class about disability.
Play

20. Right to Education (Art. 24)
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer. Tell that volunteer to read the slide and tell the rest of the audience what it means.
If your audience is particularly bashful, you may want to paraphrase the slide yourself.
Ask the volunteer whether they think the rights in the paragraph are generally respected in schools in South Africa.
Ask the audience if they have any examples of the rights being violated.
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.
Goal: The audience should understand Article 24 and see how it applies to the schools in which they work.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can just paraphrase the Article and move on.
Sample Answers regarding violations:
The right to an education is violated all the time, whenever children don’t get their needs met at school or don’t go to school at all.
South Africa has a policy on inclusive education, but most disabled children aren’t in inclusive schools.
Because many children with disabilities aren’t getting an education that recognize their differences, they aren’t being taught to develop their abilities to their full potential.

21. Right to Education (Art. 24)
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer. Tell that volunteer to read the slide and tell the rest of the audience what it means.
If your audience is particularly bashful, you may want to paraphrase the slide yourself.
Ask the volunteer whether they think the rights in the paragraph are generally respected in schools in South Africa.
Ask the audience if they have any examples of the rights being violated.
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 individual’s 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.
Goal: The audience should understand Article 24 and see how it applies to the schools in which they work.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can just paraphrase the Article and move on.
Sample Answers regarding violations:
There is no general free education.
We have heard of students with disabilities in public schools being required to pay themselves for additional tools or services that they need.
One example of reasonable accommodation would be moving classes to the ground floor so that a child in a wheelchair can attend. SAHRC heard one story about a child who was told that he had to leave school at third grade because the third grade class was on the second floor and there was no elevator.

22. Right to Education (Art. 24)
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer. Tell that volunteer to read the slide and tell the rest of the audience what it means.
If your audience is particularly bashful, you may want to paraphrase the slide yourself.
Ask the volunteer whether they think the rights in the paragraph are generally respected in schools in South Africa.
Ask the audience if they have any examples of the rights being violated.
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.
School
Goal: The audience should understand Article 24 and see how it applies to the schools in which they work.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can just paraphrase the Article and move on.
Sample Answers regarding violations:
It is unlikely that any of the teachers in most public schools know either sign language or Braille.

23. Right to Education (Art. 24)
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer. Tell that volunteer to read the slide and tell the rest of the audience what it means.
If your audience is particularly bashful, you may want to paraphrase the slide yourself.
Ask the volunteer whether they received training in sign language, Braille, disability awareness or modes of teaching for students with disabilities.
Ask the audience if they have received such training.
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.
Goal: The audience should understand Article 24 and see how it applies to the schools in which they work.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. Alternatively, if short on time, you can just paraphrase the Article and move on.
Equal, Fair

24. South African Constitution
Instructions:
Tell the audience that the Constitution also covers the right to education.
“Everyone has the right to a basic education.”
Goal: The audience should see that the rights that they have been discussing are not just international rights, they are South African.

25. Exercise
Instructions:
Tell the audience that now that we have talked about the benefits to people with disabilities, it’s time to talk about the benefits to themselves.
Ask the audience to tell you what benefits there might be to themselves or their classes to including children with disabilities.
Record responses on the flipchart, if using. Alternatively, repeat and emphasize the answers. (“Yeah, good point. All of your students might benefit if you present information in multiple ways.”)
If people aren’t answering, call on experienced teachers.
How can you and your class benefit from the inclusion of children with disabilities?
Goal: Get the audience thinking about their job to educate people with disabilities as something beneficial instead of as a chore or a burden.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise. However, the use of a flip chart and marker to record answers are optional and may enhance the exercise. Use of a flip chart is particularly recommended when the overheads are not in use.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. If short on time, you can skip this exercise.
Tip: Answers to look for:
This is another question where lots of creative answers are possible. For example:
Teaching children with disabilities may require the teacher to change his or her presentation of information. For example, there is a deaf child in the class, the teacher may want to write more information on the blackboard or give more detailed handouts. This could benefit the whole class, because some students learn best by hearing information and others learn best by seeing the information.
Since children with disabilities have the same rights as everyone else, learning about these rights will help all students understand their rights.

26. Inclusive Education
Instructions:
Tell the audience that, as they discussed, the Convention requires inclusive education.
Inclusive education for most children is also South Africa’s policy.
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.
Goal: The audience should understand that inclusive education is part of this human rights framework.

27. Inclusive Education
Instructions:
Explain to the audience:
Inclusive education means that children with disabilities can go to the same schools as everyone else.
Inclusive education requires a change in thinking. You have to think about fitting the education to the individual students instead of fitting the students into the school rules and curriculum.
Teachers should meet the needs of these children, just as they meet all of their other students’ needs.
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 learner’s needs are met, instead of focusing on fitting the learner into the system.
We don’t have “normal” kids and “special” kids. We have a diverse population of learners who learn in various ways.
Goal: The audience should understand what inclusive education is.
Happy

28. Inclusion v. Mainstreaming
Instructions:
Ask for a volunteer to explain the difference between mainstreaming and inclusive education, using the information on the slide.
Ask the audience to give examples of mainstreaming and examples of inclusion.
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.
Goal: Verify that the audience knows what inclusive education is by comparing it to mainstreaming.
Source:
Department of Education (2001) Education White Paper-6: Special Need Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System, P-17, Pretoria, ELSEN Directorate.

29. Exercise
Instructions:
Ask the audience the questions on the slide.
Try to get a positive discussion going. Get people in “problem solving mode,” and away from, “my goodness that would be a lot of work mode”.
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?
Goal: The audience should think about things to that could be changed in their schools to be more inclusive. This should help the audience get used to the idea of having students with disabilities in their classes.
Materials: No materials are needed to complete this exercise.
Time: Allocate between 10 and 30 minutes to this exercise when you compile your workshop. If short on time, you can skip this exercise.

30. Rights of People with Disabilities
Instructions:
Ask people if they have any further questions.
Answer those questions.
If this is the end of your workshop
Go around the room and have everyone tell you one thing that they learned from the presentation.
Thank them for coming.
Clean up and go home.
If you are doing a longer workshop,
Start the equality court presentation.
Rights of People with Disabilities
An Introduction for Teachers