people and planet

14
behaviour, play, development of relationships and coping
with change. Where appropriate, respondents are asked
to compare the functional difficulties of their child with
those of a child of similar age (Table 14.3).
The module underwent extensive cognitive and field
testing between 2012 and 2016. For example, it was field
tested with questions on 12 domains in Samoa as part
of the 2014 DHS. It showed that 2.7% of 5- to 9-year-olds
were unable to function at all in at least one domain,
while 5.3% faced a lot of difficulty in at least one domain
(Loeb, 2015). A parallel validation process is incorporating
the module into the next round of UNICEF’s MICS.
In 2016, the development of guidelines for producing
statistics on children with disabilities and a user manual
with technical information for implementation are due to
be completed.
An operational measure of disability is important to keep
the education challenges of individuals with disabilities
high on the global agenda. But other steps are needed.
To ensure that education is inclusive, educators must
be better prepared and school infrastructures properly
adapted to address the needs of individuals with
disabilities (see Chapter 17). Monitoring these aspects is
important to ensure that schools and teachers do not
leave any learners behind.
TABLE 14.3:
Selected questions from the Washington Group/UNICEF
Survey Module on Child Functioning
Seeing domain
1a. Does (name) wear glasses?
1b. When wearing his/her glasses, does
(name) have difficulty seeing?
1c. Does (name) have difficulty seeing?
Mobility domain
2a. Does (name) use any equipment or
receive assistance for walking?
2b. Without using his/her equipment or
assistance, does (name) have difficulty
walking 100/500 meters on level ground?
2c. When using his/her equipment or
assistance, does (name) have difficulty
walking 100/500 meters on level ground?
2d. Compared with children of the same age,
does (name) have difficulty walking 100/500
meters on level ground?
Coping with change domain
3. Does (name) have difficulty accepting
changes in his/her routine?
Source: UNICEF (2016b).
(If no, skip to question 1c)
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty,
a lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty,
a lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
(If no, skip to question 2d)
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty,
a lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty,
a lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty,
a lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
Would you say (name) has: no difficulty, some difficulty, a
lot of difficulty or cannot do at all?
LANGUAGE
In most multilingual countries, many children are taught
and tested in languages they do not speak at home,
hindering their early acquisition of reading and writing
proficiency. Their parents may lack literacy skills or
familiarity with the language of instruction, 1 reinforcing
learning opportunity gaps between linguistic groups
(UNESCO, 2016d).
Evidence suggests the most effective language education
policy involves the use of a child’s first 2 or home language
in the early years of schooling, alongside the introduction
of a second one, 3 both as subject and, later, as a parallel
medium of instruction. Implementation of such a policy
has been found to improve performance in the second
language as well as in other subjects (Benson, 2016).
Recent studies also highlight the importance of sustained
use of the first or home language as a medium of
instruction for at least six years of schooling – increasing
to eight years in resource-poor contexts (Heugh et al.,
2007; Ouane and Glanz, 2011).
One proposed thematic indicator under target 4.5 is
the percentage of primary education students whose
first or home language is used as language of instruction.
Collecting reliable information on this is not easy or
straightforward. By combining population statistics,
language demographics and language in education
policies, the Human Development Report estimated that
35% of people did not have access to primary education
in their mother tongue in 2000 (UNDP, 2004). A more
recent study concluded that about 40% of people around
the world do not have access to instruction in a language
they speak or understand (Walter and Benson, 2012).
This could be expected; populations are growing faster in
parts of the world where fewer people are taught in their
mother tongue.
In linguistically diverse countries and regions, language
in education issues are especially salient. Of the
25 countries with the highest index of linguistic diversity,
20 were in sub-Saharan Africa and the remainder in
South-eastern Asia, the Pacific and Southern Asia
(Figure 14.9). These issues are also vocally debated in
many countries in Europe and Northern America, where
a large share of students from immigrant families have
particular educational needs.
A starting point for monitoring language policies in
primary and secondary education is the systematic
2016 • GLOBAL EDUCATION MONITORING REPORT 267