CRC/C/GC/9
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F. Research
61.
Causes, prevention and management of disabilities do not receive the much needed
attention on national and international research agendas. States parties are encouraged to
award this issue priority status ensuring funding and monitoring of disability focused research
paying particular attention to ethical implications.
VIII. Education and leisure
(arts. 28, 29 and 31)
A. Quality education
62.
Children with disabilities have the same right to education as all other children and
shall enjoy this right without any discrimination and on the basis of equal opportunity as
stipulated in the Convention4. For this purpose, effective access of children with disabilities
to education has to be ensured to promote “the development of the child’s personality, talents
and mental and physical abilities to their fullest potential (see articles 28 and 29 of the
Convention and the Committee’s general comment No. 1 (2001) on the aims of education).
The Convention recognizes the need for modification to school practices and for training of
regular teachers to prepare them to teach children with diverse abilities and ensure that they
achieve positive educational outcomes.
63.
As children with disabilities are very different from each other, parents, teachers and
other specialized professionals have to help each individual child to develop his or her ways
and skills of communication, language, interaction, orientation and problem-solving which
best fit the potential of this child. Everybody, who furthers the child’s skills, abilities and
self-development, has to precisely observe the child’s progress and carefully listen to the
child’s verbal and emotional communication in order to support education and development
in a well-targeted and most appropriate manner.
B. Self-esteem and self-reliance
64.
It is crucial that the education of a child with disability includes the strengthening of
positive self-awareness, making sure that the child feels he or she is respected by others as a
human being without any limitation of dignity. The child must be able to observe that others
respect him or her and recognize his or her human rights and freedoms. Inclusion of the child
with disability in the groups of children of the classroom can show the child that he or she has
recognized identity and belongs to the community of learners, peers, and citizens. Peer
support enhancing self-esteem of children with disabilities should be more widely recognized
and promoted. Education also has to provide the child with empowering experience of
control, achievement, and success to the maximum extent possible for the child.
4
In this context the Committee would like to make a reference to the United Nations Millennium Declaration
(A/RES/55/2) and in particular to the Millennium Development Goal No. 2 relating to universal primary
education according to which Governments are committed to “ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys
and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have
equal access to all levels of education”. The Committee would also like to refer to other international
commitments which endorse the idea of inclusive education, inter alia, the Salamanca Statement and Framework
for Action on Special Needs Education adopted by the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access
and Quality, Salamanca, Spain, 7-10 June 1994 (UNESCO and Ministry of Education and Science of Spain) and
the Dakar Framework for Action, Education for All: Meeting our Collective Commitments, adopted by the
World Education Forum, Dakar, Senegal, 26-28 April 2000.