Inclusive education for students with disabilities in the global COVID-19 outbreak emergency: some facts and thoughts from China

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 has globally affected many countries and territories. Among COVID-19 influences, the education sector is really becoming an area of public concern. According to UNESCO report, due to COVID-19 more than 1 billion students were affected by school closures in 106 countries. Among that large number of students, students with disabilities need to be given specific attention as they tend to have fewer educational opportunities outside school because of various barriers. Take China as an example, the current study considers there are four challenges that inclusive education for students with disabilities are facing during the pandemic: education policy design lacks a disability perspective; technology offered is not accessible; mainstream schools overlook the responsibility for educating students with disabilities, and parents of students with disabilities are unprepared for distance and home-schooling. The experiences of some related stakeholders being affected by COVID-19 are shared in the article. Additionally, we offer some recommendations to improve the inclusive education provision for students with disabilities during the COVID-19 period, as well as in the future.

Keywords:

• COVID-19
• inclusive education
• school closures
• students with disabilities
• China
• barrier-free environment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020ECNU-HWFW024).

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2020ECNU-HWFW024).