Inclusion and education

DATA FOR INCLUSION: THE POLICIES AND 
RESULTS COUNTRIES MONITOR VARY
Data on the education attainment and achievement of 
various groups help describe their situation and prompt 
policy responses from education and other ministries. 
Implementation of these responses needs to be 
monitored, within a clear results framework, to achieve 
progress on making systems more inclusive.
This section analyses three key monitoring areas: 
progress towards inclusion and desegregation in schools, 
collection of qualitative data on inclusive teaching 
practices, and inclusive approaches to data collection.
Student segregation occurs at several levels
A key tenet of inclusion is ensuring that the diversity 
of the school-aged population is represented in every 
classroom. In practice, this goal is undermined by the 
existence of special schools and of special classes 
within mainstream schools and by residential and other 
geographical disparities.
Information on the share of students in special 
schools is incomplete
A key system-level question is the extent to which 
children are in the same classrooms regardless of 
background. While enrolment in separate schools is the 
most easily identified form of segregation, statistics on 
intermediate arrangements, such as mainstream classes 
with special support or special and mainstream schools 
on shared premises, are rarely available. This scarcity 
reflects the variety of possible and potentially concurrent 
arrangements and the lack of standardized nomenclature 
and clear-cut boundaries (Hornby, 2015).
In Europe, large variation is observed in the percentages of 
students identified with special needs, as mentioned above, 
but also in the percentages of those enrolled in special 
schools and in segregated classes. Poland and Lithuania 
have similar shares of students in special schools (about 
1.5%). However, in Lithuania such students make up just 
1 in 10 of the 13% identified with special education needs. 
By contrast, while far fewer Polish students are identified 
with special needs, almost one in two of them is in a special 
school. Overall, one in three students identified with special 
needs in Central and Eastern European countries is placed 
in a special school, compared with one in two in northern 
European countries (and all, or almost all, in Flanders 
[Belgium], the Netherlands and Sweden) and less than one 
in five in southern European countries (and almost none 
in Italy and Portugal). Latvia and Slovakia rank among the 
countries with the highest shares of students in special 
schools in Europe (Figure 3.10).
Nevertheless, the percentage of students with disabilities 
attending special schools has been falling in both Latvia 
and Slovakia at a rate similar to the regional average, which 
fell from 78% in 2005/06 to 53% in 2015/16. Other countries 
have made faster progress. In Serbia, where all children 
with disabilities were in special schools in 2008/09, the 
share had fallen to 36% seven years later. Other countries 
that made rapid progress from a starting point where all 
children with disabilities were enrolled in special schools 
were Armenia (to 27% in seven years), Montenegro (to 
21% in seven years) and Tajikistan (to 26% in just two years). 
The Republic of Moldova also made spectacular progress, 
reducing the share from 77% to 9% in 10 years (
Figure 3.11
). 
However, it should be noted that reducing numbers 
in special schools does not automatically mean more 
inclusion; non-inclusive alternative arrangements, such as 
special classes, may emerge.
Countries have also addressed the need to move children 
without parental care out of residential institutions. Faced 
with harsh conditions during the post-Soviet transition, 
many parents opted for residential care, especially in the 
case of children with disabilities. The phenomenon peaked 
in around 2000 but there was a slow decline from 973 to 
683 per 100,000 children in residential care between 
2005 and 2015. Georgia and the Republic of Moldova have 
made rapid progress (
Figure 3.12
).
One in three students identified with special needs in Central and Eastern 
European countries are placed in special schools
62
GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 2021

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The concentration of vulnerable students 
varies by country
Even where each school follows inclusive practices, the 
education system as a whole may not be inclusive.
In addition to selective admission policies and streaming 
into different tracks, poor or ethnic minority families are 
often clustered in certain localities and schools. As such 
schools are not identified explicitly in education statistics 
as schools for poor or minority students, there is no direct 
equivalent to special school enrolment statistics. Learning 
assessments, such as PISA, are an alternative source on 
segregation, as they collect information on schools’ and 
students’ socio-economic characteristics. Three indices 
provide complementary perspectives.
The first measure of inclusivity is based on student 
population diversity in terms of economic, social and 
cultural status, a measure of socio-economic background 
drawing on students’ home resources, parental education 
and occupation. PISA defines as an index of social 
inclusion the percentage of variation in status resulting 
from differences within rather than between schools. 
The more diversity within schools, the more inclusive the 
education system.