How inclusive is the right to inclusive education? An assessment of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities’ concluding observations

ABSTRACT

Across jurisdictions, what constitutes inclusive education varies. The adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in 2006 provides a critical opportunity to untangle the elasticity of ‘inclusive education’. Using Article 24 CRPD as the normative framework for inclusive education and drawing on a content and critical policy analysis of the Concluding Observations of all countries examined by the CRPD Committee to date, this article systematically explores the emerging trends and foci of the right to inclusive education across the globe and examines their implications for discourse and practice. It will be argued that while the right to inclusive education has become more focused, persistent concerns abound. In particular, voice must be given to children with the most complex and profound disabilities and for whom the practicalities of inclusive education are more difficult to achieve. Greater focus is also required in achieving a rights-compliant transition from segregated to inclusive education settings that does not, in the process of doing so, rescind the rights of the minority of children with the most profound disabilities currently in segregated schools. These issues need to be explicitly confronted so that the inclusive education can be promoted for all children with disabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• disability
• rights
• CRPD
• transition
• segregation
• critical policy analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 It should be noted that General Comments are not in themselves legally binding but are a treaty body’s interpretation of particular treaty provisions, thematic issues or its methods of work.

2 This will be discussed in the next section.

3 Article 24(3) CRPD requires States parties to ensure 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 maximise academic and social development.’

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bronagh Byrne

Dr Bronagh Byrne is a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at Queen’s University Belfast. She is Co-Director of the Centre for Children’s Rights and the Disability Research Network at Queen’s. Bronagh has published widely on disability rights and children’s rights with a particular focus on the translation of international human rights obligations to national policy and practice.