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18 August 2015
- From the section Africa
An estimated 500,000 disabled children are being excluded from South Africa’s education system, US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) says in a report.
HRW says the government has discriminated against disabled children in its allocation of school places.
Children are excluded from mainstream schools and forced to wait years for places at special schools, it says.
The government says it has achieved the UN target of enrolling all children in primary schools by 2015.
But campaigners say the government needs to admit that it is not providing quality education to all of its children.
“The job is not done until all children count just the same in the education system,” said Elin Martinez, a children’s rights researcher and author of the report.
Human Rights Watch researchers also found that inadequate teacher training and understanding of children’s disabilities means children with disabilities in classrooms are not properly treated in classrooms.
In some cases, children suffered physical violence and neglect in schools, they added.
A mother of an eight-year-old boy with Down’s syndrome told HRW that her child was denied admission because of his illness.
“We tried to put him in a [mainstream] school but they said they couldn’t put him in that school… because of Down’s syndrome he isn’t like other children so they [said they] can’t teach him,” said Qinisela, who lives in Kwa-Ngwanase in KwaZulu-Natal province.
Parents of children with disabilities are often asked to pay fees that children without disabilities do not, HRW said.
This prevents some children from having access to education at all because their parents cannot afford the fees.
The 94-page report from the international pressure group found that many adolescents with disabilities lack basic life skills that should be taught in school and are facing difficulties in getting employment.
In 2007, South Africa was one of the first countries to ratify the UN Disability Rights Treaty, which requires the government to promote an inclusive education system.
However, HRW said the government should adopt a new policy and legislation that would ensure equal learning opportunities for people with disability.
