Sightsavers to share expertise on inclusive education at global conference

Sightsavers’ education, research and policy teams will join hundreds of practitioners, researchers, consultants and policy-makers from the global education community at the UKFIET international education conference on 12-14 September 2023.

Attendees at the conference, taking place in the UK city of Oxford, will present project findings and explore the impact of education programmes and policies.

There are 240 million children with disabilities worldwide, who face massive inequality in access to schooling, especially girls with disabilities. Sightsavers works in more than 12 countries to ensure that education systems are inclusive.

At the conference, Sightsavers will call on funders, researchers and the education sector to prioritise inclusive education and ensure children with disabilities are considered as the sector adapts to tackle climate change.

The organisation will also present lessons learned from innovative inclusive education projects.

For more information, visit the conference website.

Tuesday 12 September

Inclusive early childhood development education  approaches in Malawi
11.30am GMT, Room 10, Examination Schools
Sightsavers supports young children with disabilities to access early childhood education in rural Malawi. This presentation will share insights into the changes that have been made as a direct result of input from the local community.
Speaker: Veronica Stapleton, global technical lead for inclusive education

A feasibility study of disability data collection in schools in Sierra Leone
11.30am GMT, East School, Examination Schools
Disability-inclusive data on education is essential for the provision of quality education – but approaches to collecting and using the data must fit the local context. This presentation will highlight the findings from a study led by Sightsavers that assessed the feasibility and acceptability of disability data collection in schools in Sierra Leone.
Speaker: Julia De Kadt, head of portfolio, health and disability research

Inclusive decentralised financing in education in Cameroon and Senegal
11.30am GMT, Room 7, Examination Schools
This presentation will highlight key learnings from our inclusive education programme in Cameroon and Senegal. It will draw on interviews with ministerial staff, representatives of organisations of persons with disabilities and local councillors. It will identify ways in which local financing of disability-inclusive education can be made more impactful, not only in Cameroon and Senegal but across francophone sub-Saharan Africa.
Speaker: Laurene Leclercq, global technical lead for education and social inclusion

Transforming patriarchal systems to respond to school-related gender-based violence
4pm GMT, East School, Examination Schools (also available online)
Sightsavers will contribute to this joint session with Cambridge Education. Girls, especially those with disabilities and those from poorer backgrounds, are most likely to experience gender-based violence and to suffer life-long consequences from lost education, emotional and physical harm, stigma and exclusion. In this symposium, Sightsavers and Cambridge Education will explore three examples of strengthening responses to sexual and gender-based violence in school settings.
Sightsavers speaker: Abs Dumbuya, disability technical lead

Sightsavers holds independent research organisation status and uses research to improve our approaches to inclusive education. Watch our video to learn more.