Handicap International experience in Afghanistan - CBM

A crucial aspect that influences access is the age at which a person became disabled. The overall accessto public school is twice as high for non-disabled children than for children disabled before the age of 7regardless of where they live, their sex or their generation. This result confirms that being disabled beforeschool strongly influences access to any form of education.Moreover, NDSA results show that the proportion of non-disabled children aged 7 to 14 accessing publicschool today is almost twice as high (64.2%) as the proportion of children with disability (35.3%): the gapis widening.Figure 21: Gap in Access to School According toGender and Types of Disability for Persons Aged7 to 1480• Girls• BoysSex Difference in Access70605040302045.725.131.033.318.429.2100PhysicalDisabilitySensorialDisabilityMentalDisabilityAssociatedDisabilitiesEpilepsy/SeizuresNonDisabledResults confirmthe hugeoverall gapregarding accessto educationbetween boysand girlsGirls have less access to school than boys. Only 15.0% of girls disabled before age 7 go to school comparedto 24.0% non-disabled women. There has been an improvement for non-disabled women over recent years:about 19% non-disabled women aged 15 to 25 accessed education in the past, whereas over 43% 7 to 14year old non-disabled girls have access today. However, in the 7-14 age-group, when we look at the situationof girls disabled before 7, even if only 15.2% young girls with disability go to school, this proportion wasalmost non-existent in previous generations. Whatever the type of disability that a young Afghan girl suffersfrom, the probability of her accessing school still remains very low.Results confirm the huge overall gap regarding access to education between boys and girls. This gap mightseem more alarming when it comes to children with physical disability (45.7%): the main issue remainsaccess of all girls to school. The gap that we observe with regard to physical disability can be explained byeasier access of boys with these disabilities due to social norms of acceptability and minimal effort requiredwithin classes in order to include them within the education process.Figure 22: Access to Education According toGender in Urban and Rural Areas807060• Persons Disabled Before Age 7• Persons Disabled After Age 7and Non-Disabled50403020100Female RuralFemale UrbanMale RuralMale Urban34 Understanding the Challenge Ahead