Nepal Disabled Women Association (NDWA) organized a provincial level consultation program to review the activities and exchange experiences under the Leveraging Existing Accessibility Resources in Nepal (LEARN) project in Nepal. This event was organized to discuss an activities and achievements of the LEARN Project, which is run with the aim of finding the learning limitations of children with disabilities and struggling in learning to help achieve equal learning through high and low technology.

Addressing the program, Member of Parliament Ms. Pratima Gautam said that self-awareness is necessary to change the social attitude towards people with disabilities, she added that education is very necessary for every children including children with disabilities from the basic level and the education sector should be prepared for this. She also realized that the barriers of accessibility for person with disability and expressed her commitment to raise the issue in the Parliament for the disability friendly and accessible infrastructures.

Helen Sherpa, the Country Director of World Education Inc., said that the understanding of the principles of the UDL and the publication of the EdTech toolkit were important achievements under this project. She also added that the activities under this project will help children who have not been identified with disabilities in the classroom.

Dr. Baburam Dhungana, Director of Curriculum Development Center CDC, said that everyone should work together to make the environment suitable for inclusive education.

Dr. Divya Dawadi, Director of the Inclusive Education Unit under the Center for Education and Human Resource Development CEHRD, said that the Universal design for learning UDL is the best way to address all kind of children to learn. Although the law addresses this concept, due to Nepal’s geographical and other environment, it will be difficult to go to inclusive learning immediately so that we should prepare for this gradually and environment should be created accordingly.

Tika Dahal, Chairperson of NDWA, said that in order to implement inclusive education, the concept of special schools should be removed and should proceed for the integrated education.

The vice president of NDWA, Mina Poudel, presented the activities, achievements, learnings and challenges of the LEARN Project.

Technical partners of the project, Autism Care Nepal Society, Action on Disability Rights and Development (ADRAD) Nepal, National Deaf Federation Nepal shared the activities completed through their organizations. The teachers and principals of the Kavre Deaf School, Arunodaya Secondary School, Laboratory Secondary School and Susthamanasthiti Pariwarik Sarsalla Kendra shared their experiences after receiving the training and EdTech .

Ninety participants including Centre for Education and Human Resource Development CEHRD, representatives of OPDs, World Education, principals and teachers of various schools, heads of education branches under the municipality were participated in the program.

NDWA in partnership with World Education  has completed activities for technology-friendly learning with the concept of Universal Design for Learning UDL  for 581 children with disabilities and 6,295 basic school children from 10 resource classes, 11 special schools and 28 mainstream schools of Bagmati province.

The LEARN project is funded by All Children Reading: A Grand Challenge for Development (ACR GCD), a partnership of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), World Vision, and the Australian Government.