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The Sustainable Development Goal four aims at ensuring inclusive, free and equitable quality education. In a conflict setting such as Western Darfur, the education system has been destroyed, leaving millions of children out of schools. Various stakeholders, namely UNICEF and non-governmental organizations, have taken initiatives to rebuild schools and include all children since the beginning of the conflict in 2003. However, very little evidence is available to date on the education of children with disabilities living in conflict and post-conflict situations. Between the 1st of October 2008 and the 28th of February 2009, we carried out a household survey in all localities and settlements in the rural council of Um Kher, part of the locality of Wadi Salih in the state of West Darfur, Sudan. We interviewed 11,089 heads of household about activity limitations and functioning difficulties associated with a health problem among all family members using a validated screening instruments, as well as 1436 children on various aspects of access to education, learning outcomes and psychological wellbeing. We found that in a context of protracted conflict, all children are at high risk of being excluded from schools and not learning when in school. We also found that children with disabilities were at higher risk of poorer psychological wellbeing, particularly those children with behavioral and mood disorders, as well as associated disabilities. In a context of conflict and protracted crisis such as Darfur, promoting education requires a lot of external effort to ensure access and positive learning outcomes for all children, including children with disabilities. Our study shows poor basic cognitive learning outcomes for all children and the limited effectiveness of the protection of children in schools. Improving learning outcomes and mental wellbeing of vulnerable children in conflict, crisis and protracted crisis contexts require multilevel and multipronged interventions within and outside schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early 1990s, UNESCO estimated that perhaps 97% of the world's 650 million disabled persons were unable to read or write, leading to significant efforts throughout the developing world to ensure that all children with disabilities attended school through ‘inclusive education’ programmes. But what of the vast majority of persons with disabilities who now are adolescents or adults, well beyond the reach of classroom education, or the estimated 90% of disabled children who will still ‘age out’ of the system before such inclusive education is available in their communities? In this paper, we review findings from a global literature search on literacy of adults with disability in developing countries which shows that there is currently little in international development, education, health or disability research policies or programmes that addresses this issue. On the basis of these findings we argue that while inclusive education efforts for children are important, more attention also needs to be directed to providing literacy skills to illiterate and marginally literate disabled adolescents and adults. A concerted effort to improve access to basic literacy and numeracy skills through both inclusion in general adult literacy programmes and disability-specific adult literacy programmes is urgently needed to reach the goals for education and poverty eradication established by the new United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and by the Millennium Development Goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humanitarian crises as a result of conflict are often characterised by failure of the social contract between the state and its citizens. For a variety of reasons, children with disabilities are often particularly vulnerable in time of humanitarian crisis. This paper draws on research undertaken by the authors in a series of countries affected by conflict and looks at how the politics and policies of such countries, and the humanitarian and development agencies working in them, continue to exclude children with disabilities from formal and informal education structures. It will be argued that this exclusion not only impedes progress on inclusive education, but also has wider implications as education programmes are often the conduit through which a number of additional child protection mechanisms are implemented. Children with disabilities who are not in the formal education system are therefore at risk not only of missing out on education opportunities, but are also excluded from critical child survival initiatives, thus increasing their vulnerability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]