One of the key issues the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities aims to look into is strengthening disability equity evidence collection in order to ensure persons with disabilities have equitable access to opportunities, lifelong learning, training and capacity building and all other services and interventions.
This was one of the issues discussed at the Disability Rights Summit currently taking place in Irene, Pretoria, organised by the Department of Social Development. The White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was officially launched by President Zuma at the opening of the Summit on March 10.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities – compels member states to work on removing barriers to access and participation for people with disabilities.
However, a lack of disability statistics continues to hinder efforts made at all levels of planning in allocating resources aimed at improving the lives of persons with disabilities. In order to close this statistical gap, the Department of Social Development has started a project to collect more data on disability in the country.
This includes tracking statistical disability trends (including a disability monograph and development indicators); investigating whether persons with disabilities are considered and integrated into government programmes and policies; as well as the development of a Disability Inequality Index – a comparison between persons with disabilities and persons without disabilities.
The Department of Social Development is also collaborating with Statistics South Africa to develop a Database on People with Disabilities. A key outcome of the Database will be the establishment of standards in data collection on persons with disabilities to increase comparability and facilitate analysis.
Ultimately, government wants to be able to determine persons with disabilities’ enrolment and completion rates for early childhood development (ECD), general education and training, further education and training, higher education and training, and technical vocational education and training; their rate of employment in both the public and private sectors; as well as the political representation of persons with disabilities. Government aims for a 5% improvement in these indicators by 2019.
The Summit has also looked into strengthening access to early childhood development services for children with disabilities. Government’s ECD policy recognises early childhood development as an essential building block for lifelong development.
The Summit heard that children with disabilities attending inclusive ECD centres in their neighbourhood benefit from the stimulation of learning and playing with neighbourhood peers. Their desire to participate in group activities motivates them to work harder on developmental goals. This approach recognises that children with disabilities and their families have ordinary needs and must have access to mainstream programmes and services.
The implementation plan of the White Paper on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities – which the Summit has been called to develop – is therefore expected to set out how inclusive early childhood development for children with disabilities will be achieved.
As a starting point, the Department of Social Development is already working to determine the percentage of registered ECD facilities and programmes with access and participation measures in place to welcome children with disabilities.
The Summit ends on 12 March 2016.
Media inquiries to:
Lumka Oliphant
Cell: 083 484 8067
E-mail: lumkao@dsd.gov.za
