The Unstoppable
How a teacher with a disability from Tajikistan is working to create an inclusive learning environment for all children.
Roziya lives in Bokhtar, a 3000-year-old city of 100,000 people located roughly halfway between the country’s capital Dushanbe and the border of Afghanistan.
She developed visual impairments when she was in ninth grade. Studying became increasingly difficult, and she eventually had to leave mainstream school. She was 15. Although she was allocated a home teacher, this teacher was not trained to work with children with visual impairments and did not visit regularly.
When she was in her early twenties, she learnt Braille by herself. By her late twenties, she had applied for university. Now, in her early thirties, she has degrees in history and law from Tajik State University and is enrolled in a master’s degree.
Smart, motivated and compassionate – four years ago she decided it was time to become a teacher for children who live with visual impairments like she does. However, there was not a single facility for children with visual impairments in the whole of Bokhtar or its surrounding districts.
Giving children with disabilities the hope of learning
Luckily for her, there were few schools in Bokhtar which already had some experience in mainstreaming children with disabilities. However, those children were mostly segregated in separate classrooms (integrated education). She was hired by one of those schools and became a champion for inclusive education. Her vision and understanding of inclusive education were influenced by a project of UNICEF in which her school participated as a model school. Roziya closely worked with children with visual impairments to provide additional support and ensure their smooth transition to mainstream classrooms. To make that happen she also helped the teachers to overcome their fear in teaching children with visual impairments together with other children and adapt their teaching to enable all children to actively participate during the lessons. Her participation in USAID’s supported project 'Read with Me'. strengthened her mentorship role at the school, as she became a key trainer and mentor of the programme.
However, Roziya’s school is one of very few in Tajikistan ready to enroll children with disabilities in mainstream classrooms. According to Ministry of Health and Social Protection data, above 75 per cent of children with disabilities still do not have access to education (starting from early childhood to higher education opportunities). While there has been progress at policy level, significant barriers to education for children living with disabilities, especially at school level remain, especially in rural areas.
My vision for the future is that we will create adequate conditions at school level for all children. I also believe that building the capacity of teachers to work with children with disabilities is key to achieving a truly inclusive education system that meets the individual needs of all children.
Where inclusive education policies are in place, social stigma is still a barrier
Perhaps the greatest barrier of all to break, however, is social stigma. Roziya, maybe inadvertently, is also helping to fix this problem. Today Roziya continues to provide additional classes on Braille in the resource class established by the Ministry of Education and Science to support inclusive education in mainstream schools. At the same time, she is a lead primary teacher and teacher mentor at her school. Her success at her school has convinced teachers, school administration and parents that children with disabilities can and must study in mainstream schools. By showing how people living with disabilities are as capable of contributing to society as anybody else, Roziya has become not only a role model at her school, but for her greater community.
Stigma and lack of appropriate conditions at school stands in the way of progress for children in Tajikistan who live with disabilities. Due to culturally ingrained preconceptions surrounding disability, many children are kept behind closed doors and prohibited from socialising or attending school. However, those few who are willing to come to schools encounter other challenges, such as accessible infrastructure, trained teachers, assistive devices and adaptable teaching and learning materials.
To address this issue, UNICEF has been supporting an ongoing national awareness-raising campaign reaching over 3 million people through TV, radio and social Media and community mobilisation interventions. In parallel, the organization is supporting the key educational institutions, such as Teacher Professional Development Institutes to develop and role out a module on Inclusive Education. The Ministry of Education and Science with technical support from UNICEF is finalizing the Concept on Inclusive Education which will pave the country’s path to progressive realization of inclusive education – a priority area of National Education Development Strategy until 2030.
Every child deserves a fair chance in life. UNICEF Tajikistan addresses the rights of children with disabilities in a holistic way with both sectoral and cross-sectoral interventions, including provision of inclusive learning opportunities, infrastructural rehabilitation and disability inclusive WASH at schools as well as support to the establishment of proper referral systems possessing the knowledge and capacity to serve children with disabilities and their families.
