Representation: Measuring the Inclusion of Learners with Disabilities in Program Outcomes Disability Inclusive Indicators to Ensure Accountability

• In Event: Implementation of the Right to Education for Learners with Disabilities: Lessons Learned from USAID’s Multi-Country Study on Inclusive Education

Proposal

Tracking disability inclusion is a key activity for ensuring project activities meet the needs of learners with disabilities. Two approaches to measurement allow governments and implementing partners to utilize disability data to monitor the progress of inclusion. These are including disability in Educational Management and Information System (EMIS) and monitoring disability inclusion through program indicators. Efforts to produce quality data on disability require multiple approaches from valid screening and identification process and using proxy measures for inclusion to building inclusive government data systems. MCSIE evaluated these efforts to better understand progress and risks in collecting disability data.
While efforts in Malawi remain at the advocacy stage, in Nepal, many improvements have been made to the Educational Management and Information System (EMIS) subsystem to reflect better data on learners with disabilities, yet gaps in the screening system hinder efforts to procude reliable data. Including screening data without confirmed diagnosis could place students at risk of labeling or discrimination. To protect children and prevent mistakes in service provision, screening data should be confidential until and unless a disability diagnosis is provided. Once diagnoses are confirmed, users of EMIS data require training on how to access systems to use in decision-making and the provision of local supports.
Difficulty establishing valid and reliable screening tools also hindered efforts to produce data necessary for monitoring project performance indicators, including the goal-level indicator intended to measure the project's overall success. As a result of screening delays and barriers, projects are not able to report on outcomes related to reading gains among learners with disabilities in general education classrooms. MCSIE evaluators will examine the use of performance indicators that require data on disability to disaggregate performance by disability, as well as the use of proxy indicators to measure inclusion, such as teacher demonstrated use of universal design for learning in the classroom. Discussion will take place on how to determine the best way to obtain MEL data on learning outcomes in environments where valid comprehensive screening and evaluations are not yet available.

Author

• Niraj Poudyal, Kathmandu University School of Arts