Inclusion and education

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION REQUIRES 
APPROPRIATE SCHOOL BUILDINGS AND 
FACILITIES
Four key obligations for fulfilling the right to education, 
as defined originally by the late United Nations special 
rapporteur Katarina Tomaševski, are availability, 
‘providing for a sufficient number of schools (and 
teachers)’; accessibility, ‘ensuring unhindered, affordable 
and non-discriminatory access to education for all 
children’; acceptability, ‘providing quality education, in a 
safe environment, while respecting specific features of 
certain groups (such as ethnic minorities) and accepting 
children’s views on how their rights are implemented’; and 
adaptability, ‘establishing education systems that can 
adapt to the needs of all children, in particular those with 
specific needs such as children with disabilities, minority 
and refugee children or working children’ (Council of 
Europe, 2017, p. 16).
The role of the learning environment in overcoming 
barriers to access and ensuring education’s safety and 
adaptability is recognized in target 4.a of Sustainable 
Development Goal 4 with its references to ‘education 
facilities that are child, disability and gender sensitive’ 
and to ‘safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning 
environments for all’.
Almost all education systems in the region identified 
infrastructure as a barrier to inclusive education. 
Substandard building conditions hinder physical access to 
school, especially for children with disabilities and special 
needs. Minimally accessible, acceptable and adapted 
infrastructure means students can get to the school, 
enter it, move through it, use classrooms, and have 
access to water, sanitation and hygiene, play facilities, 
emergency evacuation and communication services.
Informative, comparable cross-country evidence 
remains elusive. Although many countries have national 
standards, they vary. A recent report argued that adapted 
infrastructure should be defined globally as ‘any built 
environment related to education facilities that has been 
built or modified to enable accessibility by all users, 
including those with different types of disability’ and 
referred to ‘pathways, entry, evacuation and/or use of 
a building and its services and facilities (including at a 
minimum, educational, recreational, and water, sanitation 
and hygiene facilities). Examples of adaptations include 
ramps, handrails, widened doorways, modified toilets, 
clear signage, and tactile markers’ (UIS, 2018, p. 15). 
Despite progress, this standard has not yet taken effect. 
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Nešto više, a non-government 
organization, has created an interactive map providing 
information on facilities’ degree of adaptability to 
people with disabilities according to five characteristics: 
entrance (no stairs and handrail); elevator; Braille signs; 
disability-adapted toilet; public transport; car access; and 
parking availability. As this definition suggests, schools 
may meet some but not all elements of a given set 
of standards.
Still, the proportion of adapted and accessible 
infrastructure that some countries report gives an 
indication of the challenge. In Croatia, 40% of elementary 
school buildings have an adapted entrance. In Kyrgyzstan, 
only about 8% of schools have the necessary infrastructure 
for children with disabilities. In Lithuania, only 10% of 
regular education is fully adapted for students with 
physical disabilities and only 3% for students with visual 
impairment, while 60% of schools are partially adapted. In 
Slovakia, 14% of primary and 21% of secondary schools are 
considered to provide access to ‘adapted infrastructure and 
materials for students with disabilities’, which has been the 
global indicator of SDG target 4.a.
Infrastructure conditions are also unequal within 
countries. Potable water, adapted sanitation and 
hygiene are not ensured in remote rural schools 
of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mongolia, the 
Republic of Moldova, Romania and Tajikistan. Inadequate 
sanitary conditions and lack of changing rooms can 
lead to harmful school experiences for girls. Lack of 
appropriate transport is another barrier to school access. 
In Minsk, Belarus, a law permits people with disabilities 
to use specialized municipal transport free of charge, 
but only twice a week, which does not cover their 
transport needs fully.
Almost all education systems in the region identified infrastructure as a 
barrier to inclusive education
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Even if standards were agreed upon, monitoring capacity 
tends to be weak, as data reported by schools are often 
not independently verified by external inspectors who 
could comment on facilities’ quality and not just their 
availability (UNDESA, 2019). In Estonia, the government 
approved a plan in 2015 that described the situation, 
forecast basic and upper secondary school network 
requirements, outlined previous investment and 
determined infrastructure investment principles to 2020. 
Lithuania’s education management information system, 
which has been collecting data since 2018, provides 
online information by municipality on various aspects 
of accessibility and adaptability in general schools.
In North Macedonia, the Educational Inspectorate 
has monitored building conditions, leading to a plan 
to improve school accessibility. Serbia’s Ministry of 
Education, Science and Technological Development 
and the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit 
developed and integrated indicators on architectural 
and information accessibility to monitor education 
institutions’ status and prioritize infrastructure work.
Several countries have been modernizing physical access 
to schools and developing appropriate school facilities. 
In Croatia, out of 2,119 primary school buildings, 7% were 
fully and 26% partially adapted by 2017. In Georgia, 
more than 20 schools have been built and more than 
1,500 renovated since 2013. In Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, 
51 schools and 37 kindergartens were scheduled to 
benefit from entrance ramps in 2020. Incorporating 
full-access facilities from the outset is estimated to 
increase total building cost by 1%, while adaptation after 
completion can increase it by 5% or more, depending on 
the modifications (United Nations, 2019). In Montenegro, 
13 new primary schools and 18 new regional facilities 
were built between 2003 and 2017, while 100 schools 
have been adapted and reconstructed since 2007.
To improve monitoring and investment plans, countries 
need to define national frameworks that determine 
the principles and characteristics of accessible school 
environments. In Bulgaria, an accessible architectural 
environment includes at least an accessible entrance 
and accessible communication spaces, rooms and 
spaces for common use, and sanitary and auxiliary 
spaces. Public spaces are connected by an accessible 
route. Specific requirements are taken into account 
for various types of disabilities. In Croatia, the School 
Network Without Architectural Barriers project aimed 
to make spatial accommodations in schools to improve 
equal access to education for students with motor 
disabilities. Georgia developed a new concept of interior 
design and arrangement of the education environment. 
In Mongolia, safety and physical environment 
standards developed for general schools have improved 
schoolyards, fences, lighting, security, playgrounds and 
sports fields with inclusive design. In Turkey, Education 
Vision 2023 includes a new approach to education 
environment and school space organization.
Promoting and implementing definitions and designing 
new school environments is a complex process. 
National guidelines need to support implementation 
at school level and clarify school responsibilities in 
the process. In Hungary, although inclusive design is 
formally a criterion for newly built education facilities, 
in practice it varies. Montenegro provides head 
teachers with counselling on adapting their schools 
to improve accessibility. School leaders need to know 
and understand how resource allocation works, as they 
must be involved in any adjustment considered for the 
education environment.
Accessibility is often improved by retrofitting the 
environment and adding accessibility features to 
support some, but not necessarily all, children. Hence 
the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons 
with Disabilities adopted the concept of universal design: 
‘the design of products, environments, programmes 
and services to be usable by all people to the greatest 
extent possible, without the need for adaptation or 
specialized design’ (United Nations, 2006, p. 4). Universal 
design aims to increase functionality and be applicable 
to everyone’s needs, regardless of age, size or ability. 
Whether for school buildings, public walkways or 
physical appliances, universal design can be used to 
evaluate existing designs, guide the design process and 
educate designers and users about the characteristics of 
more usable products and environments.
Seven principles of universal design were developed 
by a group of architects, product and environmental 
To improve monitoring and investment plans, countries need to define 
national frameworks that determine the principles and characteristics of 
accessible school environments
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designers, and engineers: equitable use for people with 
diverse abilities; flexibility in use to accommodate a 
range of individual preferences and abilities; simple and 
intuitive use, regardless of user experience, knowledge, 
language skills or level of concentration; perceptible 
information that is effectively communicated, regardless 
of surrounding conditions or sensory abilities; tolerance 
for error to minimize the consequences of accidents 
caused by unintended actions; low physical effort; 
and appropriate size and space for approach, reach, 
manipulation and use, regardless of user’s body size, 
posture or mobility (Centre for Excellence in Universal 
Design, 2019).
These principles, which guide inclusive practice from the 
start, are recognized by some countries in the region. 
In Bulgaria, they are meant to guide accessibility of 
information and communication, access to curricula and 
curriculum content, reasonable adjustments, technical 
means, specialized equipment, didactic materials and 
methodologies. In Georgia, all schools and resource 
rooms are formally obliged to be adapted to learners’ 
additional needs and equipped using universal design 
standards. The Latvia Education Standards specify 
that schools should comply with hygiene requirements 
set out in regulations and offer health-promoting, 
physically and emotionally safe learning environments. 
These should be in accordance with students’ age 
and developmental needs and with universal design 
requirements. Standards refer to easy-to-understand 
information, easy access and contrasting design of 
environmental objects on the floor and indoors.