Inclusive education policy for people with disabilities in Yangon, Myanmar

Abstract

This research is intended to find out the challenges of education for people with disabilities (PWDs) in Myanmar and the factors that undermine the education development opportunity for them in Myanmar. The objectives of this research are to analyze the concept of inclusive education (IE) and its policy framework and implementation in Myanmar, to assess the government's and stakeholders’ perceptions on inclusive education, to identify problems of accessibility to education faced by PWDs, and to identify an appropriate design of IE for children with disabilities (CWDs). It was designed to cover all types of CWDs in the primary and lower secondary school level in Yangon Division. This research uses qualitative method in order to understand the actual situations or phenomenon. Primary data was gathered from individual and group interviews with the responsible officers of the concerned departments, teachers from formal and special schools, Non-Governmental Organizations, CWDs and their parents in August, 2012. Secondary data collection includes government’s IE policy and the impact of its strategies, and a review of the International norms of IE. The findings of this research exhibit that the IE policy for PWDs does not yield expected results. PWDs only have benefited a little from the policy rhetoric. There are a number of reasons namely societal negative attitudes, trainings for teachers on disability issues, and inaccessible school environment. Particularly, children with intellectual/seeing/hearing disabilities will need individualized and special education designs for which a lot of improvement must be made. This only indicates that the idea of IE, where CWDs learn in the same class as other students, might not be appropriate to Myanmar, where the government cannot support with relevant facilities. In particular, the society where economic vulnerability is still prevailing IE has become only rhetoric. Myanmar will have to seek other alternatives that integrate the role of community, family and civil society organizations in appropriate local resources to increase a broader opportunity for basic education for the excluded PWDs.