Inclusive Education Community Mobilization Strategy - ACL - Cambodia

The project is a collaborative effort between the Cambodia Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Global Partnership for Education. The project's goal is to develop a strategy for piloting a national early grade learning program, with a focus on inclusive education. The project has two overarching goals: to mobilize active support from parents and communities, from school and MoEYS staff, from civil society, and from the private sector for the project's activities, which are designed to support children who have disabilities, and to use the work of All Children Reading–Cambodia as the basis for promoting improved understanding, awareness, and attitudes regarding the education of children who have disabilities. The project supports more inclusive education in a variety of ways, including ensuring inclusivity in teacher and student materials, incorporating strategies for greater inclusion in teacher training, and piloting activities to screen for and respond to the needs of students with hearing or visual disabilities. The project is guided by a set of principles, including the principle that children with disabilities have the right to a quality and meaningful education. The project recognizes the challenges in identifying, at scale in low-income contexts, children with disabilities and the fact that in the short term, many children in school with mild to moderate disabilities might not be identified. Therefore, the project draws on principles of universal design for learning to promote instructional approaches and teacher techniques that are useful to support all children who may be struggling in school, including children with disabilities. The project has been piloting additional activities targeted to identify and support children who have visual and auditory disabilities. Community mobilization will be primarily in support of those targeted activities. Nevertheless, the project will support communication and mobilization activities that promote the broader objectives of inclusion—for children with any disabilities, as well as for children who face other challenges or barriers to being fully included in early educational opportunities. The project recognizes that all work concerning the promotion of and mobilization of support for inclusive education is best informed by and accomplished through the active involvement of people with disabilities both individually and through organizations that represent and/or advocate for their interests. The project's inclusive education community mobilization strategy is a complement to the work already being done across the three result areas. The purpose of the strategy is to articulate ways in which the project can use its increasing experience supporting more inclusive early primary education to mobilize a growing group of MoEYS staff, other stakeholders, school-level personnel, and partners and community members as advocates for and supporters of inclusion. The project will contribute to the knowledge base in Cambodia about how to address some of the challenges and inform the MoEYS and the full complement of stakeholders of how best to improve the inclusiveness of pre-primary and primary education in achievable, realistic increments.