THE RELEVANCE OF INDIGENOUS CUSTOMARY EDUCATION PRINCIPLES IN
THE FORMULATION OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION POLICY

BOAZ

Paper presented at the Fourth International Special Education
Congress, Birmingham, 10-13 April 1995

University of Manchester
School of Education

April 1995 THE RELEVANCE OF INDIGENOUS CUSTOMARY EDUCATION PRINCIPLES IN THE FORMULATION OF SPECIAL NEEDS EDUCATION POLICY

Joseph Kisanji

INTRODUCTION

The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action on Special Needs Education adopted at the World Conference on Special Needs Education in June 1994 reaffirmed commitment of the world community to “Education for All” and urged governments to “give the highest policy and budgetary priority to improve their education systems to enable them to include all children regardless of individual differences and difficulties”. The United Nations (1994) in its “Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities” urges Member States in Rule Number 6 to ensure special needs education “is an integral part of the education system”. These statements in support of the “Education for All” campaign which was given the blessing of the international community at the 1990 Jomtien Conference provide broad guidelines for national and local action.

However, national governments have to unpack the guidelines to make "Education for All" a practical reality for people with special needs. This unpacking, which is in effect the translation of international into national and local policies, and the subsequent actions at the implementation level present special problems for countries in the South. Economic and socio-political factors have been highlighted to affect equity and quality in general education (Seidman and Anang, 1992;