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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GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 2021
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.
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