Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 5th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Good morning to all of you.

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 41 of the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. The members can attend in person in the room or remotely using the Zoom application.

To ensure that the meeting runs smoothly, I want to give the witnesses and members some instructions.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic and please mute your microphone when you are not speaking.

Regarding interpretation, for those on Zoom, you have the choice at the bottom of your screen of floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

The members in the room who wish to speak must raise their hand. The members on Zoom must use the “raise hand” function. The clerk of the committee and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

We appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

In accordance with the committee's routine motion concerning connection tests for witness, I'm informing the committee that all witnesses have completed the required connection tests in advance of the meeting.

Now, please join me in welcoming the witnesses, who are appearing this morning as we continue our study of international disability-inclusive education.

From the University of Ottawa, we have Madam Mona Paré, professor.

From the International Development Research Centre, we're joined by Naser Faruqui, program director, education and science.

From Light for the World, we have Ms. Nafisa Baboo, director inclusive education. She is attending this meeting by video conference.

From the International Disability Alliance, we have Mr. José Viera, director of advocacy; and Ms. Dorodi Sharma, senior adviser, advocacy and engagement, both by video conference.

Thank you for being with us today.

You will have a maximum of five minutes for your remarks, after which we will move on to questions from members of the subcommittee.

I will let you know when you have one minute left.

We'll start with you, Ms. Paré.

Thank you for agreeing to speak with us.

You have the floor for five minutes.

[Mona Paré, Full Professor, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and subcommittee members, for your invitation to contribute to your vital work on human rights.

Canada has obligations for inclusive education under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Canada must uphold the rights of children with disabilities at the national level and through international co‑operation.

By “children with disabilities,” I mean children who have physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments, as defined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. In the internal school context, for example in Ontario, this means students with behavioural, communication, intellectual, physical or multiple exceptionalities. This creates a heterogeneous group, which presents a major challenge for inclusive education.

At the international level, inclusive education has been promoted for about thirty years. In Canada, the provinces have also shifted the focus towards education in the regular school environment. However, one ongoing issue is the lack of a definition of inclusive education. In addition, for children with disabilities, the focus is often on integration into the regular classroom rather than on inclusion.

The inclusive education philosophy focuses on education in a school system where all children can learn together, where children feel included and where the needs of all children are taken into account to enable them to participate in society. This is about more than disability. Inclusive education targets all minority communities and groups that have traditionally been segregated or overlooked in schools, such as language, religious and racial minority groups; newcomers; and so on.

Integration isn't necessarily part of this philosophy. The emphasis is solely on the child's placement. The model involves the student in the regular classroom adapting to the school, rather than the other way around. The idea is to help the student adapt through reasonable accommodation.

Even though inclusive education is the ideal, in practice, many families prefer to keep their children in separate classrooms so that they can receive the appropriate services. This often applies to children with severe learning disabilities. Parents want to ensure optimal learning conditions for their children so that they can reach their full potential. Other families prefer integration, even when the inclusive model isn't strictly implemented. They consider social participation more important than educational achievement. This often applies to children with intellectual disabilities.

In terms of inclusive education, it's important to remember the heterogeneous nature of disability and the wide variety of needs, not only among children, but also across the types of impairment. The educational needs of children and the expectations of families are different. It depends on whether the child has a physical or intellectual disability, a learning disability such as dyslexia, or deafness, for example. It should be noted that representatives of the deaf community have ensured that the convention doesn't prohibit separate education for sign language users.

Education for children with disabilities is a matter of applying the principle of the child's best interests. There's now some consensus, including among Canadian courts, that inclusion is a benchmark, but not an absolute standard, and that each case should be considered on an individual basis.

Of course, resources are a major issue. Given the lack of staff, equipment and services in regular schools and classrooms, it's easy to say that segregated education serves the child's best interests. If the resources were available to meet the educational needs of all children, it would become clear that inclusion in the regular classroom serves the child's best interests.

In closing, in keeping with our international obligations, it's important to invest in education. Inclusive education can help meet a number of educational objectives, such as the development of a spirit of understanding, equality and tolerance; participation in society; and so on.

However, with a rights‑based approach, it's important to avoid standardized approaches. Every child is a subject of the law. They each have their own unique identity, needs and interests.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Paré.

I would like to invite Mr. Faruqui to take the floor for five minutes.

[Naser Faruqui, Program Director, Education and Science, International Development Research Centre]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the subcommittee, I'm pleased to be here.

Thanks so much for the invitation to appear.

My name is Naser Faruqui. I'm the director of education and science for the International Development Research Centre, or IDRC.

IDRC is a Crown corporation that was established in 1970. It reports to Parliament through the Minister of International Development. We support research and innovation in low- and middle-income countries as part of Canada's official development assistance.

Two principles underpin our support to local actors. The first is that those closest to development problems are best placed to develop innovative solutions to solve them. The second is the importance of sharing what works across regions and internationally.

Previous witnesses have made clear the need for action on disability-inclusive education. We are working with many of those organizations.

What IDRC would like to bring to this discussion is the need for and the power of research and evidence to effectively respond to the educational needs of people with disabilities. There is a genuine demand in the global south for evidence on the most effective ways to strengthen education for all learners. IDRC's work is responding to this demand and looking to scale what works.

Complementary to Canada's important investments in the Global Partnership for Education, IDRC hosts the research and evidence arm of this international fund. We call it the knowledge and innovation exchange, or KIX for short. KIX builds evidence on how proven innovations can improve education systems in low- and middle-income countries.

To optimize the limited resources available to national education systems in these countries, our approach identifies innovations that work and builds evidence on how to scale them. These innovations cover a broad spectrum, from educational technology solutions to cost-effective, community-based early learning models.

I'd like to share four of the areas where IDRC is strengthening the evidence that is critical to advancing disability-inclusive education.

First is gaining a better understanding of the realities of children learning with disabilities to improve their education access and learning. Without clear data on disabilities, including baselines and gaps, we are unable to respond to all children's needs. IDRC is supporting countries to strengthen their education data systems, including integrating data on disabilities to provide schools with the information they need to plan for inclusive education.

Second, inclusive education in the early years is critical to identifying disabilities and paving the way for success throughout a child's education. IDRC is supporting community-based pre-primary centres to identify and include children with multiple types of disabilities early on, especially in rural communities where these children often fall through the cracks.

Third is harnessing the potential of technologies in the classroom, ensuring that they're inclusive and ensuring that teachers know how to support those technologies. Artificial intelligence technologies hold promise, but often are not accessible in local languages. For example, we're supporting the development of an assistive technology that translates spoken English to Kenyan sign language using virtual signing characters. This will help Kenyans with hearing disabilities access education more easily, as there are few qualified Kenyan sign language interpreters in the country.

Last, it's clear that disability-inclusive initiatives cannot be isolated from the overall system. We're learning how to integrate inclusive education into public education systems that are adapted to local contexts. For instance, we're helping to equip teachers, school leaders and parents with the skills they need to integrate learners with disabilities into education systems, including empowering school principals to support greater disability inclusion in their schools.

A recent UNICEF study shows that half of the kids with disabilities in low-income and middle-income countries don't finish school, with girls facing disproportionate challenges. This timely study by the subcommittee can help address the need for practical solutions.

I'd like to conclude by reinforcing the critical importance of building evidence on what works to ensure that no one is left behind in education.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you. That was great timing, Mr. Faruqui.

I would like to invite Ms. Nafisa Baboo to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Nafisa Baboo, Director, Inclusive Education, Light for the World]

Good morning, honourable members of Parliament.

As a person with a visual impairment, I would not be where I am today if it were not for technology. My father, who was blind, insisted I do computer science as an additional subject in high school. He was convinced that technology was the key to opening possibilities for girls and boys with disabilities beyond those stereotypical career paths, such as if you're visually impaired, becoming a teacher or a lawyer, or if you have a hearing impairment or intellectual disability, becoming a caterer or a painter.

Access to appropriate quality technologies can mean the difference between enabling and denying education for a child, enabling and denying participation in the workforce for a young adult, or enabling and denying self-reliance and social inclusion.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a staggering number of school-age children remain out of school and are denied their right to quality education due to system-level challenges, such as there not being enough schools or qualified or motivated teachers, or their schooling is disrupted due to conflict or climate change.

The situation is even more dire for children with disabilities. Compared to children without disabilities, children with disabilities are, according to UNICEF, 49% more likely to have never attended school, and they are 42% less likely to have the foundational reading and numeracy schools that are needed. They are also most often excluded from science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects, hindering their ability to be skilled for the 21st century and attain dignified work.

Technology offers a real lifeline for millions of learners with disabilities. Through accessible technology, barriers such as not having an accessible textbook or a physical textbook that needs to be transported and printed can be overcome. It's very heartening to see how major tech producers are embracing universal design, acknowledging that accessibility is not just a necessity for some, but is useful for everyone. Accessibility regulations enacted by legislators like yourselves can have a big impact at scale in developing countries.

Let me tell you about a groundbreaking initiative in Burkina Faso spearheaded by Light for the World and its partners. This visionary project harnesses technology to operationalize the Marrakesh Treaty, which is a pact that loosens copyright restraints for visually impaired and print-disabled people. The goal is really simple, yet very profound. It is to ensure seamless access to learning materials through technology. If we can succeed in one of the world's least resourced countries, there is no doubt in my mind that this can be replicated globally.

In Burkina Faso, most students with visual impairments are actually in mainstream schools, and they are supported by a school and resource centre established by the organization for persons with visual impairment in that country. Through the project, we have upskilled the centre to use more efficient methods to convert handouts and assessments into accessible formats. To lighten the load on the resource centre, we trained up both teachers and students to create accessible content and access more books using their Android devices. Tablets, laptops and affordable devices with solar chargers were distributed and accompanied by the creation of multimedia training material that meets the UNESCO ICT teacher competency framework requirements. However, more time and resources are needed to take this to scale, as well as more research for the proof of concept.

We recognize that it's really difficult for teachers, especially those who have large classes and are confined to a very rigid curriculum, to support students with disabilities. However, universal design for learning is a very creative teaching strategy that responds to diversity from the outset by offering multiple ways of engaging and expressing learning. Students with disabilities really thrive when lessons follow those UDL principles and when their disability accommodations are met. Universal design for learning, accessible ed tech and technologies can offer a unique solution for teachers, students with disabilities and those who are unable to attend school regularly.

Really, making disability inclusion mandatory in all education programs funded by the Government of Canada, particularly in this emerging field of technology, can change the life trajectory of millions of girls and boys with disabilities.

I appeal to the committee to take action and make this happen.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Baboo.

Now I would like to invite Madam Dorodi Sharma to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Dorodi Sharma, Senior Advisor, Advocacy and Engagement, International Disability Alliance]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Dorodi, and I am joining all of you from India.

I represent the International Disability Alliance. I am joined by my colleague and our director, Mr. José Viera, who was supposed to present this testimony, but unfortunately, due to technical issues is not able to present this himself.

IDA is a global alliance of 14 global and regional organizations of persons with disabilities, or OPDs. We have been at the forefront of global advocacy on advancing the rights of all persons with disabilities. Through our membership, we have an outreach in 182 countries across the world.

For all our members, education is a core area of work and continues to be a priority. While our understanding of disability-inclusive education has evolved over the past several decades, especially with the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the reality on the ground continues to be dismal.

This is especially true for countries of the global south. My own experience, based on the situation in India, and that of my director, Mr. Viera, who is from Argentina, speak to the immense challenges that still prevent millions of children with disabilities from even getting to a classroom, let alone getting any kind of education.

It is unfortunate that Mr. Viera is unable to share his own experience of the growing numbers of blind persons in Argentina. I hope the committee will provide an opportunity for him to share his personal testimony as well in the foreseeable future.

Honourable members of the committee, as Ms. Baboo said, UNICEF's data from 2022 shows that 49% of the world's 240 million children with disabilities are likely to have never attended school. This is a matter of shame, as well as a huge tragedy of our times, I would say. At IDA, together with the members, we have worked on articulating what disability-inclusive education truly means through the IDA global report on inclusive education.

All jurisprudence and the testimony of leaders on inclusive education now unequivocally says that all children must learn together in their communities, and this includes children with disabilities—and all kinds of disabilities.

At IDA we have also taken steps to train community organizations on disability-inclusive education. Together with Education Cannot Wait and our member organization Inclusion International, we are currently implementing a project on access to education for children with disabilities in situations of emergency and protracted crises.

Together with the World Bank and UNICEF, we have also supported a study on understanding the struggles of and the costs entailed by learners with disabilities and their families to access education. Families often bear the additional costs, which are those of transport, personal assistance, assistive technology or rehabilitation, etc., on their own, which further adds to the barriers that keep these children with disabilities, especially those with high-support needs, away from the schools.

Our work clearly shows that countries and governments have yet to meaningfully invest in transforming education systems for disability inclusion, especially those with intellectual and development disabilities. We cannot be doing patchwork on systems that are inherently discriminatory, and the COVID-19 pandemic proved that, when under pressure, our education systems have miserably failed to prevent discrimination and the exclusion of learners with disabilities.

In fact, in many places, we have actually regressed and have created even more segregated learning cases where children with disabilities are isolated and provided with poor-quality education, if at all. We need much more investment to actively change our education systems and build a culture of inclusion.

However, evidence shows that investment, in particular, development assistance, to promote disability inclusion has been significantly low. Data from before the pandemic shows that aid projects actively targeting disability inclusion were as low as 0.05% of all international aid. This figure potentially is even lower now, given the economic downturn and budget cuts.

In this context, we are extremely encouraged by the House of Commons taking up our issue. We urge Canada to play a leading role globally on the issue of the disability-inclusive transformation of education systems that are accessible and equitable for all learners with disabilities, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

To do that, we need to work on many fronts. We have to progressively increase budgetary allocations for disability-inclusive education towards being at least 5% of education budgets. We should also apply for ODA and development grants. Countries must set medium- and long-term targets to ensure all learners with disabilities are reached in all education programs. Above all, we must work on supporting and strengthening community-based organizations of persons with disabilities, including their families, to understand their rights and to understand what they must demand from their governments.

True change will only happen when people themselves are empowered to drive the change that they would like to see in their own communities.

Members of this esteemed committee, the International Disability Alliance stands ready to support this House in its efforts to advance disability-inclusive education for all learners with disabilities.

Thank you so much for the opportunity, and thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Sharma.

Excuse me, but now I have to suspend for a few seconds in order to do a sound test. We have a new witness who just joined us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I call the meeting back to order, please.

I would like to invite Madam Ola Abualghaib to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Ola Abualghaib, Manager, Technical Secretariat, United Nations Partnership on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to participate in this important discussion.

My name is Ola Abualghaib. I am the technical lead for the fund on the rights of persons with disabilities.

Our fund is unique, because it provides funding to governments to move ahead in terms of their commitments on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, including article 24 on education, and SDG4 on ensuring inclusive education and equality of education for all learners across their life cycle.

Our fund has already been implementing programs in 87 countries. Our approach to providing funding is making sure that national level program systems and policies are inclusive of rights of persons with disabilities, including children with disabilities.

The CRPD is very clear about what must be done to achieve quality, inclusive education for all. Children with disabilities must be included in the general education system and have access to reasonable accommodation and the support services and measures they require.

Member states must take action to ensure that all children with disabilities can access the skills they need to be included, including through the provision of Braille, sign language interpretation and availability of appropriately trained teachers and staff.

We understand from our work across the globe that there is a lot of commitment to inclusive education. However, there are still very significant challenges on the ground for children with disabilities to access education. We have heard colleagues regarding the existing statistics that are, unfortunately, showcasing that the reality on the ground is not meeting the ambition that the global world has committed to around access to education for children with disabilities.

We know that fundamental changes are required to achieve inclusive education. This is why UNPRPD programs focus on delivering system change at national level. For example, the UNPRPD fund is currently working to revise legislation to ensure non-discrimination, accessibility, the provision of support services and building the capacity of the education system across the education systems in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Vietnam. We are also delivering a multi-country program in Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe to develop understanding of stigma and discrimination in technical and vocational education and training institutions, and among employers as well.

As the subcommittee will be aware, it's also vital to consider how broader issues impact education. It should be tackling disability equally. As world leaders have been convening at COP28, we must also consider how climate change threatens education systems and specifically its implication on children with disabilities.

We know that climate disasters disrupt access to education and damage education infrastructure. Unfortunately, we have already witnessed on the ground that many children with disabilities are impacted by this situation.

Building connections between climate action and education is vital for achieving transformative change. However, it is vital to remember that children and adults with disabilities are usually impacted by climate change and the mitigation measures designed to minimize the impacts, so their rights must be prioritized within that space as well.

Finally, as colleagues heard from fellow witnesses last week, there is a major issue around underinvestment in education and inclusive education specifically. This is not related only to education. This reflects chronic underinvestment in disability and development more broadly. According to OECD's DAC markers, 90% of development aid does not consider persons with disabilities, and zero to 27% have disabilities as their main focus.

Awareness of disability rights has grown since 2006, but this has not been backed up by finance or action. Sustained investment is required to achieve lasting change—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Can you please wrap it up? The time is up.

[Ola Abualghaib]

Government must urgently translate their commitments to concrete actions and investment. That's why today's discussion is very vital for us all.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Abualghaib. It's nice to welcome you. Even if you came late, we are lucky to have you today.

Witnesses, thanks for your good comments this morning.

Now we would like to go to questions and answers with the members of the subcommittee.

I would like to start by inviting Mr. Lake to take the floor for seven minutes, please.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for the testimony.

I'm going to start with Dorodi and Nafisa.

It's a fairly basic question. Almost everybody mentioned the UNICEF stats that talk about how unincluded kids are. Forty-nine per cent are more likely to have never attended school. When you think of those populations, young kids who are seven, eight, nine years old, we just take for granted here in Canada that all kids at that age would be included in school. It's hard for us to understand a circumstance where that might not be the case.

Why in different parts of the world, particularly the parts of the world that you referenced, would kids with disabilities not be included in school at six, seven, eight years old? What factors would lead to that?

[Dorodi Sharma]

Nafisa, would you like to go first? Then maybe I can add.

[Nafisa Baboo]

Okay, I'll do that.

Thank you, Mike, for that question.

The reality is there's a lot of stigma and shame around disability, and families still hide their children. They're not really aware that their kids have the right to go to school. I think that is one of the main reasons.

We also see that schools are not very accepting of children who are different. Often, they would reject the child or say that they need additional support. It's not uncommon for us to even see children who are 19 and in their twenties going to school for the first time. That's often students with intellectual disabilities or a hearing or vision impairment in very rural communities.

The reality is that it's about information. Information doesn't reach them. There hasn't been enough sensitization around this in that community, but this can change with social behavioural change initiatives.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thanks.

Dorodi.

[Dorodi Sharma]

Thank you.

To what Nafisa said, I think there are a multitude of factors that really affect children—

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

The interpreter is telling me that the room's microphones must be switched off to allow for interpretation—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

If any member has their mic on, please mute it.

[Dorodi Sharma]

Thank you.

Perhaps I may go ahead and answer Mr. Lake's question. I come from a very small town in the northeastern part of India, so I can talk to you about my own experiences and that of my family members who have children with disabilities.

Like Nafisa said, most of the time people are not even aware that their child has a right to education. A child goes to school at four years of age, but between zero to four years there's hardly any intervention available for most families to even understand how their child can be prepared to attend regular schools.

Children without disabilities have access to going to a playground, a prep school, or the resources and knowledge of access to rehabilitation. However, getting ready for school programs does not exist in many countries, and people are not really aware of the importance of that.

Even if you overcome all of those challenges and reach the school, schools either ask you to not come or ask you to provide for all the additional costs. Families have lost income. Families have had to build ramps. Families have had to beg and plead to make sure the classrooms are never changed for children with disabilities. I'm not even talking about those with intellectual and development disabilities here, because children with those disabilities are not even accorded that opportunity. Where there is the small sliding door that is open for others, I don't think that even opens for children with intellectual disabilities, in our part of the country at least. I think that's an important issue to consider.

Global leaders like Canada really have a role to play in ensuring that when we are supporting education programs in such countries, that we ensure we are doing no harm by reinforcing those barriers.

Thank you so much.

[Mike Lake, Conservative, Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB]

Thank you.

Ola, do you want to weigh in on this as well?

What are the causes of kids not being included at ages like six, seven and eight?