Developing Inclusive and Equitable Education Systems: The Role of UNESCO

• In Event: Promoting Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Through System Change: Global Efforts Toward Education 2030

Abstract

This paper analyzes the role of UNESCO within the global Education for All (EFA) movement instigated in 1990. Drawing on the author’s role as a long-term consultant to UNESCO (Ainscow, 2016), it traces the struggles that have occurred in relation to definitions of the key concepts: inclusion and equity.

The focus of EFA is on a challenge facing education systems around the world of finding ways of including all children in schools. In economically poorer countries this is about the millions of children who are not able to attend formal education (UNESCO, 2019). Meanwhile, in wealthier countries many young people leave school with no worthwhile qualifications, whilst others are placed in special provision away from mainstream education and some choose to drop out since the lessons seem irrelevant (OECD, 2012).

A major impetus for inclusive education was given by UNESCO’s World Conference on Special Needs Education in 1994. More than 300 participants representing 92 governments and 25 international organizations met in Salamanca, Spain, to further the objectives of EfA by considering the fundamental policy shifts required to promote inclusion in education (UNESCO, 1994). The Salamanca Statement proposed a major change in policy direction, not least for the education of students with disabilities. It is worth noting, for example, that at that time such students were not dealt with by national education departments in some countries. Rather, they were the responsibility of health or social care ministries.

Tracing the influence of the Salamanca legacy, the paper reports on the findings of a series of UNESCO projects in both developed and developing countries that points to some promising possibilities (Ainscow, 2019). In so doing, it presents a policy framework that is proving to be helpful in reviewing policy and practice (UNESCO, 2017). Based around a simple principle, ‘every learner matters and matters equally’, the complexities arise when this thinking is put into practice, as evidenced by the other papers in this symposium

The UNESCO framework places schools at the center of the analysis. This reinforces the point that moves towards inclusion must be focused on increasing the capacity of local neighborhood mainstream schools to support the participation and learning of an increasingly diverse range of learners. This involves a paradigm shift, described as an ‘inclusive turn’ (Ainscow, 2007).

At the same time, the framework draws attention to a range of contextual influences that bear on the way schools carry out their work. These influences relate to: the principles that guide policy priorities; the actions of others within the local context, including members of the wider community and the departments that have responsibility for the administration of the school system; and the criteria that are used to evaluate the performance of schools.

All this has major implications for leadership practices across education systems. It calls for efforts to encourage coordinated and sustained efforts around the idea that changing outcomes for vulnerable groups of students is unlikely to be achieved unless there are changes in the attitudes and behaviors of adults.

Author

• Mel Ainscow, University of Manchester