The IREDE Foundation (TIF), in coalition with the Children Developmental Centre (CDC) and Festus Fajemilo Foundation (FFF) announces the launch of the report on ‘’Mainstreaming Disability – Inclusion In The Process Of Budgeting For, And Implementation Of The Inclusive Education Policy In Lagos State’’
This study points to the fact that children with disabilities remain severely excluded from educational policies and still lag far behind their peers.
The research document tagged as the United for Inclusion (UIE) project is a coalition of The Irede Foundation (TIF), The Children Developmental Centre (CDC) and Festus Fajemilo Foundation (FFF), funded by the Disability Rights Fund (DRF) officially launched and deployed the report on ‘’Mainstreaming Disability- Inclusion In The Process Of Budgeting For, And Implementation Of The Inclusive Education Policy In Lagos State’.”
PWDs and Organizations Of persons with disabilities have lacked sufficient knowledge and poor participation in the Lagos State budgeting process. The UIE report, therefore, aims to increase the awareness on the existing gaps in the budget allocation for inclusive and mainstream education in Lagos State, showcases the dissatisfaction of PWD in Lagos State towards the implementation of the Special People’s Law and the Inclusive Education Policy, and also highlights strategic actions in order to deliver quality education for children with Disabilities in Lagos State. These strategic actions targeted the different stakeholders consisting of PWD, Lagos State Ministries, Departments and Agencies, CSOs’ NGOs’ and Media organizations.
In attendance were representatives from Disability clusters, Ministry of Education, SUBEB and organisation of Persons with disability.
The pilot project which spotlights Lagos State, identified the notion that poor allocation and implementation of government budgets is one of the major challenges hindering full implementation of Inclusive Education (IE) policy in Lagos state.
It was also further discovered that this trend has persisted due to the inability of organizations of persons with disabilities (OPDs) to conduct and participate in budget advocacies in the education sector.
The project has in the past months engaged with stakeholders from different clusters of organizations of persons with disabilities, The Lagos State Office of Disability Affairs (LASODA), Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget (MEPB) and Lagos State Universal Basic Education Board (LASUBEB), amongst a few others.
This report which is an exploratory and descriptive research focused on evaluating the fiscal effort of the Lagos State government and two of her local governments (Ikorodu and Kosofe LGA) in promoting quality education for all persons with disabilities, strengthening of community support and participation in the budget process and enhancing involvement and responsiveness of the public towards inclusive budgeting for inclusive education and vocational skills for PWDs.
Leveraging on the report findings and the Focus Group Discussion, capacity was built of organizations of Person with disabilities, representatives from the Lagos state ministries, Departments and Agencies and the Media organizations.