Inclusive education? There’s still a long way to go

A recent article in the Western Mail entitled ‘Disabled pupils get raw deal as schools fail  to provide basics’ (10 April, 2012)  highlighted how in Wales, children and young people with disabilities are effectively denied the same choices about where and how they are educated as their peers. Figures obtained by the Western Mail (via requests under the Freedom of Information Act) paint a dismal picture. The report highlights the inaccessibility of school buildings and the lack of toilets for disabled children in many of Wales’ primary and secondary schools.  Information was presented by the Western Mail in relation to 15 of the 22 local authorities in Wales. Key figures according to the survey, included:

– The percentage of secondary schools with ramps to main entrances ranged from 29% in Torfaen to 100% in Newport and Pembrokeshire. In primary schools the figures ranged from 19% having ramps to main entrances in Bridgend to 91% in Anglesey.

– Up to a half of all secondary schools and two thirds of primary schools in some local authority areas do not have disabled toilets.  The report indicates that in Gwynedd and Bridgend, two thirds of primary schools do not have disabled toilets while all primary schools in Anglesey, Powys and Torfaen do.

– The percentage of schools with two storeys and with a lift ranged from 21% in Neath Port Talbot to 60% in Gwynedd and Newport.

Notwithstanding the challenges in making ageing public buildings (including schools) fully accessible to all including wheelchair users and the shortage of public funds to do so, it is clear from the Western Mail’s survey that some schools and local authorities are doing much better than others. This situation is all the more shocking when we understand that all local authorities have been required by law, to improve the accessibility of schools for more than 10 years whilst over the same period there has been a huge and positive policy drive to ‘include’ disabled children in mainstream education (attending these very same primary and secondary schools) rather than sending them off to segregated, ‘special schools’.

The effect of these barriers can be devastating for children – anecdotally I have spoken to young people who have been unable to pursue particular A-level courses because there are no lifts to enable their access to the school’s science laboratories on an upper floor. Some young people have to attend schools separate from their friends – re-enforcing their sense of ‘difference’; the Western Mail article cities situations where children have been forced to change schools or even move house.

Wales prides itself on a strong track record on children’s rights and promoting equalities but the basic right to attend a school in a familiar environment with your friends, get a good education (which you have some say in determining) and fulfil your potential is clearly being denied to numbers of disabled children depending on where in Wales they live. Not enough is being done to meet these very basic requirements of ‘inclusive’ education.

Schools are now subject to the specific duties introduced in Wales under the Equality Act 2010 and will have recently considered their priorities for action to reduce inequalities. It is to be hoped that making schools accessible to disabled learners must be a priority. But, maybe its now time to place an absolute duty on local authorities to ensure schools are physically accessible to children and young people with disabilities – the current law where they have to demonstrate that they have plans to  improve access   for disabled  pupils is, I suspect, well past it’s ‘sell by date’.

Anne Crowley