Back in May, the GEM Report asked youth around the world to submit their One Big Idea to achieve inclusion in education in the ten years left in the decade of action towards 2030 – the deadline for the Agenda for Sustainable Development. We received an avalanche of good ideas from around the globe, all important in their own right. A committee chose the big idea sent in by Goodluck Chanyika from Tanzania as the winning submission.
Goodluck’s big idea
One of the things that our country (Tanzania) can do is to ensure that there are committees (this has to be formed with people with disabilities of all type) at least in every Ward so that they can act as evaluators and quality education monitors. One of the tasks is to ensure in every school there are facilities to ensure quality inclusive education. They can also act as information providers on the quality/capacity of teachers to deliver lessons and take care of students inclusively.
Listen to an interview Goodluck gave to Vivian Onano, the GEM Report’s youth advisor, about his idea.
Goodluck, aged 31, who holds a degree in education policy, planning and management, worked for Deaf Child Worldwide, a deaf education and development programme, in Kilimanjaro, where he had his first exposure of working with children with disabilities, contacting their parents and working with government officials. This gave him the opportunity to learn about inclusion in practice.
Goodluck later applied for and was admitted to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) International Fellowship Program in the US at the University of South Dakota where he gained knowledge and skills on how to work with people with disabilities. After the fellowship, Goodluck returned to Tanzania and started an NGO, Jumuisha Tanzania Initiative (Jumuisha is a Swahili word meaning ‘to include’). This initiative focuses on continuous staff development on teaching children with disabilities. Keen to expand his initiative to the rest of the continent, he presented the importance of teacher training on inclusion at the 2018 Disability Rights Conference on Inclusive Education in South Africa as well as the African Union Innovating Education in Africa expo 2019.
Goodluck says the most challenging aspect children with disabilities face, in particular deaf children, is the communication with their teachers as most teachers are not trained to use sign language.
He believed that the GEM Report recommendation, Prepare, empower and motivate the education workforce: All teachers should be prepared to teach all students, is the most relevant for Tanzania. You too can vote for the recommendation you believe is the most relevant for your country or region via the GEM Report’s online poll.
Find out more about Tanzania’s inclusive education laws and policies on the recently launched PEER website, which provides systematic and comprehensive descriptions of countries’ education legislation and policies related to the themes of the GEM Report. Read more about the youth-focused activities run surrounding the 2020 GEM Report in the 2020 Youth Report.
Hello, Can we get the papers/presentations Goodluck presented : the importance of teacher training on inclusion at the 2018 Disability Rights Conference on Inclusive Education in South Africa as well as the African Union Innovating Education in Africa expo 2019. ? Cannot find them on the web. Currently I am consulting for the UNESCO Teachers Task Force.
Here they are: https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/news/1840340-5267602-9bynm2/index.html
https://aein.edu-au.org/en/community/dashboard/851-goodluck. We have the PPT as well if you can give us an email address to forward them to. Thank you
This is a great idea, and it could be echoed for people from Indigenous or other non-dominant language backgrounds along with other underrepresented groups. (In Cambodia, School Support Committees have been created to design and manage L1-based multilingual education schools.)
Schools need to be designed and carried out for the learners they serve.
UNESCO strongly believes that there is no inclusion of millions of people around the world who do not feel like they belong in education. Countries committed to achieving inclusive education by 2030 and yet almost a quarter of a billion are still out of school. Therefore, it is important to leave no one behind stepping into the new decade. It is especially relevant now considering that ten years of action towards Education 2030 Agenda left. Another key point is to monitor and evaluate the current situation in education and take action accordingly.
Interesting interview and a good idea. This training program and its further development are very important, especially when considering that it’s intended for children with disabilities. For teaching and working with them, the qualifications of teachers must be improved all the time, and it is great that this is exactly what happens. I believe that such children require even more attention and support. And we need to provide the most convenient training and educational program. Various applications and resources for playfully learning different subjects and languages will be very useful. And also sources where can choose a written service, like this one https://www.writingjudge.com/ I think this is important so that children can feel supported when faced with problems in a particular discipline. Thank you for your work and contribution to the common cause.
Microsoft or UNISCO should develop a web, where all disabled can register,
This web also guide to all about their disabilities, awareness and articles.
In Karachi-Pakistan, we are translating various books in our language URDU and in November we will launch these translated books on web.