Barriers to Effective, Equitable and Quality Education: A Rights-based, Participatory Research Assessment of Inclusion of Children with Disabilities in Palestine

The Israeli occupation has had a considerable negative impact on the lives of Palestinians, such that achieving an effective, equitable, quality education for all children is far from being realised. Palestinian children are not only adversely affected by the occupation, but also by an educational system that fails fully and systematically to accord them their rights. Using rights-based participatory methods informed by human rights protocols, we explored the experiences of children with disabilities’ inclusion in schools. Our findings show that there is continuing failure to understand or implement the provisions of the uncrc or uncrpd , and that these children are systematically excluded or marginalised from education. We suggest that children’s rights to educational inclusion can be achieved by means of a whole system, whole educational and whole person approach, along with a consideration of a rights-based policy framework.