Find out more about this component.
Watch a video that explains the Inclusive Advocacy Component.
Read the detailed ‘how-to’ guide for the Inclusive Advocacy Component. (PDF 2,8mb)
Why is the Inclusive Advocacy Component important?
What does this component consist of?
What are the main characteristics of the Inclusive Advocacy Component?
Why is the Inclusive Advocacy Component important?
Inclusive education supports the inclusion in quality education of all learners, with and without disabilities. It involves an on-going dialogue between various actors in society about the best solutions for eliminating barriers to learning. Inclusive education is often wrongly assumed to be only about education for learners with disabilities. Ironically, organisations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) are not always strong advocates of inclusive education.
OPDs have an important role to play in inclusive education dialogue, and their voices should be heard for several reasons, including:
- OPD members have direct experience with the education barriers facing learners with disabilities, and can help find solutions.
- OPDs can collaborate with schools to pinpoint gaps, and can lobby national authorities for changes to policy, plans and budgets.
- OPDs can actively mobilise parents’ support for inclusive education.
- OPDs need knowledge on inclusive education and a clear vision for the education system’s future so they can engage effectively with schools and education authorities.
The Inclusive Advocacy Component helps to improve OPDs’ knowledge and understanding of inclusive education, so they can:
- actively support school inclusion and monitor progress;
- develop evidence-based policy advice and guidelines to support advocacy at different levels;
- develop a strategic awareness-raising approach for inclusive education.
What does this component consist of?
The Inclusive Advocacy Component comprises one training on facilitation skills and four further training modules. Each module consists of a participant’s handbook, facilitator’s manuals, handouts, videos, PowerPoint slides and illustrations.
Training components
- Skills for inclusive facilitation;
- Module 1 (Foundational): An Introduction to inclusive education for OPDs;
- Module 2: Collaboration for inclusive education;
- Module 3: Identifying out-of-school learners and supporting education transitions;
- Module 4: Sustainability strategies for inclusive education advocacy for OPDs.
- Advocacy Manual: summarises lessons from the four OPD inclusive education capacity building modules
Action research
Between each training module, participants engage in small practical action research inspired advocacy tasks. This helps them to put their learning into practice and understand more about the inclusive education related challenges and positive action in their local context.
All modules and action research tasks are designed to be adapted to different contexts and have so far been tried and tested in Somalia, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar.
What are the main characteristics of the Inclusive Advocacy Component?
The approach builds skilled, knowledgeable and confident OPD facilitators who can train OPD members, community leaders and parents/caregivers on inclusive education and make ongoing improvements to the training.
- It creates contextually relevant training materials that are co-developed and therefore co-owned by key stakeholders.
- This training approach prioritises practice over theory, promotes learning by-doing, and builds OPD members’ capacity to be innovative and critically reflective when advocating for inclusive education.
- The approach recognises the vital roles OPDs can play in advocating for inclusive education and the skills and knowledge needed for these roles.
