Transcript

Mongolia plans to better the lives of children with disabilities by making its schools more inclusive.

Persons with disabilities are among Mongolia’s most marginalized, with double the unemployment and poverty rates.

Their limited participation in schools is a key barrier for persons with disabilities.

As a result, half of Mongolian children with disabilities cannot read. The government is working to change this through dramatic improvements to education.

The Support for Inclusive Education Project is a partnership between ADB and the Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific. Through their collaboration, Mongolia is modeling inclusive educational approaches, starting with enhanced personnel capacity, infrastructure, and learning materials.

The ongoing project is helping teachers and school administrators improve: 
- education culture, 
- policies and practices, and 
- teaching and learning materials.

It is also upgrading school facilities. Four kindergartens and four schools now have braille signages, wheelchair access ramps, handrails on staircases and corridors, and restrooms suitable for wheelchairs.

In addition, 15 schools and 9 kindergartens can now provide their learners with assistive devices to enhance their access, functionality, and learning. These changes are just the beginning.

Five kindergartens and seven more schools in Ulaanbaatar are next in line for improvements. And more will potentially follow in the footsteps of the pilot schools, replicating inclusive education interventions in their respective campuses.

Over 400 teachers and 80 school administrators have also been trained and many of them are now training other teachers in sign language and braille. 

With an inclusive education culture in place in more and more schools, the future will be brighter for Mongolia’s children with disabilities.

ADB, Japan, and Mongolia: Teaming up to give children with disabilities a brighter future