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Iranwire – An Iranian deputy education minister has said that approximately 30,000 children with disabilities are unable to attend primary schools in the country.
Speaking on January 26, Masoumeh Najafi Pazuki also said that 140,000 pupils dropped out of school last year, while media reports have put the figure at over 200,000.
Pazuki attributed the discrepancy to “deficiencies in the civil registration system.”
She explained that a number of students were unable to continue their education due to “emigration,” “death” or “special disabilities.”
Pazuki’s remarks came as families of disabled citizens held several protest rallies in recent days to demand the enforcement of Article 27 of the Law on the Protection of the Rights of the Disabled, which has been pending for six years.
This article envisions the payment of a subsistence allowance equivalent to the annual minimum wage to severely disabled individuals.
According to a report by Human Rights Watch, only 150,000 out of an estimated 1.5 million children with disabilities of school age were enrolled in school during the 2018-2019 school year – 43 percent in mainstream and the rest in special schools.
Among the reasons for children to be out of the classroom, the New York-based group cited “a mandatory medical assessment, physical inaccessibility, discriminatory attitudes of school staff, and lack of adequate training for teachers and school principals in inclusive education methods.”
As a state party to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Islamic Republic must ensure that children with disabilities are able to access education on an equal basis with other children.
