Impact of Leonard Cheshire’s inclusive education model on the learning outcomes of girls with disabilities in the lake region of Kenya

• In Event: The equity initiative: building a “solutions menu”: effective interventions for children with disabilities

Proposal

This paper assesses the impact of the Leonard Cheshire’s ‘Pioneering inclusive education strategies for disabled girls in Kenya’ 2013-2017 project particularly on enrolment, attendance and learning outcomes of girls with disabilities in the resource-poor Lake region of Kenya.
Despite a global commitment to the right to education for all, children with disabilities are still typically excluded from mainstream education and this is further compounded by intersecting gender and socioeconomic inequalities. Little is known about how to achieve inclusive education in practice, and what approaches are effective, especially for girls with disabilities living in low and middle-income settings. Since 2013- 2017 Leonard Cheshire has been implementing a comprehensive and holistic inclusive education programme to ensure more than 2000 girls were enrolled in mainstream primary school in the lake region of Kenya.
The paper will present learnings generated by research and the project end-line evaluation to understand the impact of the interventions. These findings suggest that Leonard Cheshire’s holistic inclusive model was successful in engendering additional improvements in the educational attainment of girls with disabilities from the resource-poor Lake region of Kenya. Results highlight both the applicability of NGO-led interventions in collaboration with national implementation of inclusive education particularly where resources are limited and the potential for the model to be scaled up.

Author

• Ola Abu Alghaib, Leonard Cheshire