Iran: Schools Prevent Registration of Children with Disabilities

Discrimination against children with disabilities must end; inclusive education with necessary facilities must be guaranteed

Human Rights Campaign in Iran and Human Rights Watch announced in a joint report released today, coinciding with the start of the 1398-1399 academic year, that children with disabilities face significant discrimination and obstacles in accessing education.

The 47-page report titled “Like Other Children: Lack of Access to Inclusive and Quality Education for Children with Disabilities in Iran” documents discrimination and educational barriers facing children with disabilities in the country’s education system. According to the report’s findings, one of these obstacles is the mandatory “Student Health Assessment” scheme, which can completely deprive children of education. Other barriers include inaccessible school buildings, discriminatory views of school officials, and insufficient training on inclusive education methods for teachers and school administrators.

Hadi Ghomi, Executive Director of the Human Rights Campaign in Iran, said: “Preventing children with disabilities from accessing education in an inclusive environment adds to the social stigma that millions of people with disabilities in Iran face daily.” He added: “Educating children with disabilities in the same environment where their peers receive education improves learning quality for all children and benefits society as a whole.”

Human Rights Watch and the Human Rights Campaign interviewed 37 people in Iran for this report, including children with disabilities and their parents, disability rights activists, and government officials. This research follows a joint report by these two organizations from 1397. The previous report documented discrimination and lack of accessibility for people with disabilities in Iran, stereotypical attitudes and common stigma toward these individuals, misconduct by some officials and government employees, as well as existing barriers to these individuals’ access to transportation and medical care.

Children with disabilities have the right to quality, inclusive education—an educational system in which children with and without disabilities study together with access to necessary support in mainstream schools. These two organizations state in their report that inclusive education plays a key role in reducing social stigma and promoting the rights of people with disabilities throughout life.

Iran’s education system forces all children to participate in a discriminatory assessment scheme. Based on the intelligence quotient obtained from a child in this “health assessment plan,” the “educability” of children is determined. Children who score low in this assessment are forced to separate education in special schools. Children with the lowest scores are labeled “uneducable” and are completely deprived of education.

In this report, the mother of a seven-year-old blind child who also has communication difficulties described her experience with the physical health assessment and educational readiness assessment and the determination that her daughter was “uneducable”: “The day they told me they couldn’t even register my daughter in a special school was one of the worst days of my life. I want my daughter to go to school like all other children. I had bought all the school supplies for her, but during the assessment session, my daughter didn’t answer any questions, and the person responsible for evaluation said she was not educable. The whole way home with my daughter, I was crying.”

Children with disabilities who do enroll in schools face various obstacles. These barriers include inaccessible buildings, classrooms, and toilets, or lack of assistants and other support. The government must ensure that children with disabilities have access to standard facilities, including necessary support in the classroom and school building. These may include assistive tools such as hearing aids or educational content in different formats, including Braille or audio versions.

The absence of such support can place a heavy burden on families. Some parents in this report stated that they are forced to accompany their child at school, carry them up and down stairs, or help them with reading and writing.

Inaccessibility and lack of standard facilities in schools can also lead to school dropout among children with disabilities or force them to continue their education in schools far from home or even in boarding special schools, separated from family and community.

According to government statistics, during the 1397-98 academic year, only 150,000 children with disabilities of school age were registered in schools, while more than half of this number attended special schools separate from other students. Based on international estimates, the number of children with disabilities of school age in Iran is approximately one and a half million.

In recent years, the Iranian government has taken steps to improve access to education for children with disabilities, including significantly increasing budgets for special education and establishing accessibility standards in newly built or renovated school buildings. The government has also expanded its support for children with disabilities in mainstream schools by providing educational content in accessible formats, including Braille or audio versions.

However, due to the lack of a comprehensive approach to ensure inclusive education throughout the education system, these measures are insufficient to guarantee equal access to education for children with disabilities compared to other children. Iran has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Both conventions guarantee the right to quality education without discrimination for all children. Furthermore, according to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, governments must provide accessibility and standard facilities to support quality education for children with disabilities.

Jane Buchanan, Deputy Director of the Disability Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, said: “The Iranian government’s approach to educating children with disabilities causes many of these children to be marginalized in society. This government must immediately end the implementation of the Student Health Assessment scheme, which prevents children’s access to education, and take steps toward the presence of all children with disabilities in mainstream schools alongside their peers.”

Source: Human Rights Campaign