Educating Children With Disabilities In Malawi

Abstract

The 2018/19 Education Sector Performance Report indicates that children with special educational needs represent: 3.3% of total enrolments at primary school and 2.4% of total enrolments at the secondary level. Despite the lack of data regarding the nature of these children’s special needs, comparing these percentages to total enrolment figures suggests that an estimated 183,916 children with special needs were in school in 2018/19, (174,851 at primary and 9,065 at secondary). In other words, roughly 30% of the total number of 5-19-year-olds are estimated to have a disability.

So far, there are no up-to-date estimates on children with disabilities, making it difficult to estimate real needs for policy and planning. It has also been noted that 70 percent of children with disabilities were not in school and 30 percent of children with disabilities were in school. According to research, about 10.4% of Malawi’s population aged 5 years and older has at least one type of disability, 49% of whom have difficulty seeing, 24% have difficulty hearing, 27% have difficulty walking, 9% have difficulty speaking, 16% have intellectual difficulties, while 0.8% are persons with albinism.

One benefit of inclusive education is that it increases literacy rates and promotes social-economic development. It also allows learners with a disability to be happy at school when they learn in a favorable school environment just as the rest of their peers.

Keywords: Disability, Malawi, Inclusive Education, Quality Education