Stakeholders address early education of children with neurodevelopmental conditions in Africa

To address the issue of educating children who have neurodevelopmental conditions in Africa, the foundations of early childhood care must be strengthened, using multi-sectoral, culturally relevant, and collaborative approaches involving all relevant stakeholders.

This was the submission of stakeholders interested in moving the provision of accessible education forward for neurodivergent children in Africa, at a two-day Special Education Needs and Inclusion Conference.

Organised by The Winford Centre for Children and Women, the conference provided an opportunity for policymakers, practitioners, educators as well as families from African countries to discuss the issues of education provision at the early stage, as well as explore current practices that can be leveraged, and scaled to ensure that more children with neurodevelopmental conditions have access to meaningful, accessible and inclusive education.

In her keynote address, Prof. Elizabeth Walton, Faculty of Social Sciences Director of Equality Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Nottingham, while highlighting the tasks of inclusive education as those of recognition and justice, also pointed out why inclusive education has failed to gain a foothold in many countries.

This is critical given the exclusions (overt and silent) that children with disabilities experience in education and issues bordering on path dependencies in the form of self-reinforcing historical patterns and practices. An example of this is the separate ordinary and special education binary.

Parents, who were also present at the conference, disparaged the poor state of services, adding that they don’t feel heard either by educators or the government despite being critical stakeholders in the education of their children with disabilities.

They called for their increased involvement in matters concerning the education of their children. They emphasised the parental fatigue they currently experience and the high cost of accessing services.

Dr Paul Lynch of the University of Glasgow, following his ongoing research in Malawi, highlighted how teachers are usually the ones identifying children with disabilities where local systems fail to address the barriers in many African contexts.

He called for collaboration across different governmental agencies at the early childhood development stage and beyond in order to meet the educational needs of children with disabilities given the overlapping needs of the children that make it impossible for only one agency to meet.
Early years educators also made their voices heard noting the importance of small class sizes, training, and parental collaboration in order to support neurodivergent children adequately.

Various speakers stressed the importance of the African cultural context when designing early diagnosis and intervention tools, as well as support programmes. This was further highlighted when community-based projects such as the Baby Ubuntu project and The Malawi Early Childhood Project were shared.

The projects showcased how they have leveraged parents as support partners at the community level in order to be able to support more children with neurodevelopmental conditions.

Furthermore, the importance of recognising play as a useful pedagogy in supporting autistic children in Africa was highlighted.

Also speaking, the panel team of Mrs Dotun Akande, Dr Abebayehu Messele, and Mrs Daisy Jonathan called for increased government participation in and monitoring of early intervention practices. They decried the state of abuse that families experience from non-professionals who take advantage of vulnerable families by offering sub-optimal services and using unethical practices.

“Nobody is watching what we do or if we are doing it right and this is giving room for many harmful practices,” Mrs Akande said.

Participants also decried the lack of data and research on the early childhood education of children with disabilities in Africa following the presentation of the review of the African Education Research Database (AERD). They underscored the need to support African disability research and researchers to gain more visibility as well as the need for more research to capture the educational experiences and outcomes for children with disabilities.

The highlight of the conference was the introduction of “listening to the child’s voice”.

This featured Ms Christine Mike-Nnaji, who shared a sneak peek into her world as a young adult with autism.

Ms Mike-Nnaji who barely used speech for communication before the COVID-19 pandemic now uses art as a mode of expression showcasing her work at different exhibitions around Nigeria.

This was following the discovery by her parents that she has a photographic memory for images.
Dr Ossom Ossom, the Acting Director of the Social Mobilisation department at the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) stressed the commission’s interest in ensuring that all children with disabilities are included in education. While noting the need for more education on neurodevelopmental conditions within government agencies, Dr Ossom reiterated UBEC’s commitment to inclusive education and their willingness to work with organisations at the state and community levels to make that happen.

Mrs Basirat Razaq-Shuaib, Founder of The Winford Centre for Children and Women, in her closing address, emphasised the need to move away from the dominant deficit narrative within the continent that things that are not working, and look inwards at the things that are working and how they can be strengthened.

She added that while high-level international and national inclusive education agenda commitments are needed, there is a huge gap between those high-level commitments and the lived realities of families and educators.

She charged African governments to ensure that children with neurodevelopmental conditions are not left out as they make inclusive education provisions noting current increased attention to mobility and sensory impairments.

“Many of the problems faced by children who have neurodevelopmental conditions in the course of accessing education are problems that have their origins in early childhood. Therefore, if we are serious about achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (UN SDG4) as well as the Agenda 2040 for Children’s Rights in Africa, we must go back to building stronger foundations for the early childhood education of children with neurodevelopmental conditions and other children with disabilities,” she said.

The Winford Centre for Children and Women is committed to supporting children with neurodevelopmental disabilities in Nigeria.