This is the first in a monthly series of blog posts featuring inclusive education with a focus on children with disabilities. Each month we will take a different perspective and visit a different country, with the aim of sharing positive stories from the perspectives of children, teachers, parents and other stakeholders in the field. To kickstart this series, and to coincide with the Global Disability Summit being held in London on July 24^, which has a focus on inclusive education as one of the 4 key themes, we have decided to start in Nepal, in the mountainous and remote terrain of the far west, looking at inclusive education from the perspective of a teacher.

Nepal is on a journey towards inclusive education and a key factor in this is the resolve to train teachers who are committed, motivated and able to see sheer happiness and joy in teaching. 

In Nepal, there are 380 resource classes for children with disabilities (such as hearing impairment, visual impairment and intellectual disabilities), and these classes are situated in the same compound as mainstream schools.

The country is moving towards inclusion, strongly signaled in the Inclusive Education policy, launched in January 2017, and following the amended education act in 2016 and the equity strategy of 2014.

The idea is for children who are currently educated in resource classes to gradually transition to mainstream classes, especially in higher grades, and there is a move to increase overall inclusion of children with disabilities in all mainstream schools too.  

A teacher devoted to her profession and her students

Tulasha Malla Shah is a dedicated resource class teacher from the far west region of Nepal. She lives in a remote mountainous area which is inaccessible by road for several months of the year due to heavy snowfall. The challenging terrain and high level of poverty in the area mean that it can be difficult for children to access education, especially children with disabilities.

She told us of her experience and her dedication to her job, and why it brings her a “happiness that has no match!”:   

“I teach children with hearing impairment in Thuma Secondary School, Bajura. I work in Budhiganga Municipality in Achham, which is an area with high levels of poverty.

Most of households only have the mother in the home, as fathers often travel to India to find work. Mothers are generally not aware that their child's life can be improved by teaching them life skills and basic literacy and numeracy. Instead, the children are often kept locked away for their own protection. I believe it’s our job to help change that.

The children I teach come from this area. Sometimes I teach them in the resource class, and sometimes I teach them alongside other students in the mainstream classes, in the younger grades. 

I became interested in teaching children with hearing impairment after completing a sign language training course arranged by the Government of Nepal in 2006. This course made me see how I could help children with hearing impairment to learn more easily, and to help communicate with them.

The course also made me realize that children with disabilities should be treated in a unique way, so that the teacher thinks about the child’s needs, and should be selfless even if it may be a bit more difficult at first.

After 10 years of teaching using sign language, I was quite fluent and I was happy at the results many of the students were achieving. But not all the children were able to pick up written language so easily, and some of them found some of the subjects difficult to understand.

Then I attended an inclusive education training run by Humanity & Inclusion, which was about how to help reading and writing skills in children with disabilities. This training helped me to understand how I needed to use more visual approaches, pictures and other games and activities to help children with hearing impairment to learn the basics and reading and writing.

Since then I use many more teaching and learning materials, some of them I made myself, and this has made a big different to the student’s learning. I believe you cannot make teaching realistic unless you do something that’s part of real life, so using pictures and real objects when you are teaching is so important.

Educating children with disabilities can seem like a long process that needs extra effort and strong dedication. It is true that teachers need to be dedicated to do this well, but at the end when we see our students reach a landmark – that happiness has no match.”