Discrimination in Education
Focus Areas
The Education Support Program advocates for children’s legal rights while striving to provide governments and educators with the access to professional development and expertise that make inclusion possible. We support locally developed models of inclusion with potential for replication. We strengthen civil society groups to ensure that young people, parents, and teachers have a voice in policy development and communities are not crowded out of the debate.
Our projects build solidarity within and among marginalized groups to advocate for their rights effectively. Equally important, we engage communities, parents, and children from the majority as partners in inclusion with rights and valid concerns to make sure that we achieve lasting change.
In Swaziland, the Bantwana Schools Integrated Programme promotes school and community inclusion of AIDS orphans and those living with HIV. The Integrated Programme is a cost effective model that operates in 50 schools and reaches almost 20,000 children in the country’s poorest rural areas. The Open Society Foundations are working to disseminate the program’s outcomes and best practices across Southern Africa.
In Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, the Foundations followed OECD research on children with special education needs with seed funding for vibrant coalitions of parents of children with disabilities, including children with autism who are disadvantaged even among people with disabilities. The Open Society foundations in those countries, as national leaders for educational inclusion, will continue to strengthen education policy and advocate for the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Our foundations in South Eastern Europe used 2,200 principals in eight countries and 11,000 parents from ten countries to conduct research that provided evidence for advocacy on the inclusion of minorities and produced results in policy and practice. A regional partnership will promote teacher-led inclusion efforts in cooperation with Cambridge University and other European partners.
In Roma education, the Education Support Program emphasizes the importance of reliable data on inclusion, improved learning outcomes in desegregated settings, and grassroots community work. The program will continue to work to strengthen voices in government and civil society in support of inclusion and report on progress in improving Roma learning during the Decade of Roma Inclusion.
