̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Nidhi Singal

Celebrating the women of Cambridge: Part III

jek67 — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 07:45:24 +0000

Part III: To mark International Women's Day and Women's History Month, the ̽��ֱ�� is delighted to shine a light on some of the incredible women living and working here at Cambridge.

Raise the floor: education that works for everyone

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Jan 2022 08:25:50 +0000

̽��ֱ��evidence that convinced the international community that putting disadvantaged children first creates education systems that work for everyone.

Global evidence for how EdTech can support pupils with disabilities is ‘thinly spread’, report finds

tdk25 — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 09:34:13 +0000

Despite widespread optimism that educational technology, or ‘EdTech’, can help to level the playing field for young people with disabilities, the study found a significant shortage of evidence about which innovations are best-positioned to help which children, and why; specifically in low-income contexts.

̽��ֱ��review also found that many teachers lack training on how to use new technology, or are reluctant to do so.

̽��ֱ��study was carried out for the EdTech Hub partnership, by researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Glasgow and York. They conducted a detailed search for publications reporting trials or evaluations about how EdTech is being used to help primary school-age children with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries. Despite screening 20,000 documents, they found just 51 relevant papers from the past 14 years – few of which assessed any impact on children’s learning outcomes.

Their report describes the paucity of evidence as ‘astonishing’, given the importance of educational technologies to support the learning of children with disabilities. According to the Inclusive Education Initiative, as many as half the estimated 65 million school-age children with disabilities worldwide were out of school even before the COVID-19 pandemic, and most face ongoing, significant barriers to attending or participating in education.

EdTech is widely seen as having the potential to reverse this trend, and numerous devices have been developed to support the education of young people with disabilities. ̽��ֱ��study itself identifies a kaleidoscopic range of devices to support low vision, sign language programmes, mobile apps which teach braille, and computer screen readers.

It also suggests, however, that there have been very few systematic attempts to test the effectiveness of these devices. Dr Paul Lynch, from the School of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Glasgow, said: “ ̽��ֱ��evidence for EdTech’s potential to support learners with disabilities is worryingly thin. Even though we commonly hear of interesting innovations taking place across the globe, these are not being rigorously evaluated or documented.”

Professor Nidhi Singal, from the Faculty of Education, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, said: “There is an urgent need to know which technology works best for children with disabilities, where, and in response to which specific needs. ̽��ֱ��lack of evidence is a serious problem if we want EdTech to fulfil its potential to improve children’s access to learning, and to increase their independence and agency as they progress through school.”

̽��ֱ��report identifies numerous ‘glaring omissions’ in the evaluations that researchers did manage to uncover. Around half were for devices designed to support children with hearing or vision difficulties; hardly any addressed the learning needs of children with autism, dyslexia, or physical disabilities. Most were from trials in Asia or Africa, while South America was underrepresented.

Much of the evidence also concerned EdTech projects which Dr Gill Francis, from the ̽��ֱ�� of York and a co-author, described as ‘in their infancy’. Most focused on whether children liked the tools, or found them easy to use, rather than whether they actually improved curriculum delivery, learner participation and outcomes. Attention was also rarely given to whether the devices could be scaled up – for example, in remote and rural areas where resources such as electricity are often lacking. Few studies appeared to have taken into account the views or experiences of parents or carers, or of learners themselves.

̽��ֱ��studies reviewed also suggest that many teachers lack experience with educational technology. For example, one study in Nigeria found that teachers lacked experience of assistive technologies for students with a range of disabilities. Another, undertaken at 10 schools for the blind in Delhi, found that the uptake of modern low-vision devices was extremely limited, because teachers were unaware of their benefits.

Despite the shortage of information overall, the study did uncover some clear evidence about how technology – particularly portable devices – is transforming opportunities for children with disabilities. Deaf and hard-of-hearing pupils, for instance, are increasingly using SMS and social media to access information about lessons and communicate with peers; while visually-impaired pupils have been able to use tablet computers, in particular, to magnify and read learning materials.

Based on this, the report recommends that efforts to support children with disabilities in low- and middle-income countries should focus on the provision of mobile and portable devices, and that strategies should be put in place to ensure that these are sustainable and affordable for parents and schools – as cost was another concern that emerged from the studies cited.

Critically, however, the report states that more structured evidence-gathering is urgently needed to ensure EdTech meets the UN’s stated goal to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning for all’. ̽��ֱ��authors suggest that there is a need to adopt more robust research designs, which should address a full range of disabilities, and involve pupils, carers and teachers in the process.

“There is no one-size-fits-all solution when working with children with disabilities,” Singal added. “That is why the current lack of substantive evidence is such a concern. It needs to be addressed so that teachers, parents and learners are enabled to make informed judgements about which technological interventions work, and what might work best for them.”

An 'astonishing' deficit of data about how the global boom in educational technology could help pupils with disabilities in low and middle-income countries has been highlighted in a new report.

There is an urgent need to know which technology works best for children with disabilities, where, and in response to which specific needs

Nidhi Singal

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Disabled teachers face significant workplace discrimination despite drive for more inclusive schools

tdk25 — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 04:11:50 +0000

̽��ֱ�� ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge research concludes that disabled teachers remain ‘on the margins’ of a drive for greater inclusivity in schools. It draws on in-depth interviews with several teachers to suggest ways this could improve. In particular, the study identifies the need to encourage more disabled people into teaching, highlighting the skills, knowledge and empathy they can bring to classrooms.

̽��ֱ��authors suggest that disabled teachers continue to experience discrimination not because of the innate prejudice of colleagues, but because of the general pressure on schools created by various performance targets, which makes it difficult for them to accommodate staff with different needs. This may explain the fairly overt discrimination that some interviewees recounted: including a case where one teacher was told to ‘grit her teeth and get on with it’ when she requested time off work, and another in which a staff member was disciplined after devising workarounds for systems that she couldn’t use.

̽��ֱ��study itself is small, offering a snapshot of disabled teachers’ working lives using pre-existing evidence and detailed interviews with 10 professionals. This, however, reflects the under-representation of disabled people in teaching: the last time the Government recorded their numbers (in 2016), of the data returned, just 0.5% of teachers self-reported as disabled in stark contrast to the estimated 16% of working age disabled adults in the general population.

It is, however, also one of the only studies of its kind. ̽��ֱ��authors state that disabled teachers are ‘typically marginalised within research, as well as mainstream education’, and express the hope that their work will make the case for further evidence-gathering to inform policy and practice.

̽��ֱ��study was carried out by Professor Nidhi Singal and Dr Hannah Ware, from the Cambridge Network for Disability and Education Research (CaNDER), in the ̽��ֱ��’s Faculty of Education.

Dr Ware said: “There has been a significant focus on making mainstream schools more inclusive for disabled children and others. However, disabled teachers, who are entrusted with enacting that ethos, seem to have been side-lined in those efforts. These findings raise a serious question: How can we possibly promote inclusivity in schools if it only extends to children?”

Professor Singal added: “Much of the evidence we gathered suggests that stresses in the system are amplified for disabled teachers and that part of the solution is to recruit more disabled people into the profession. For schools, that would constitute a double-win: not only are disabled teachers excellent role models; they also often bring additional qualities and strengths into classrooms.”

̽��ֱ��participating teachers, whose details were anonymised for the study, had a wide range of disabilities. Interestingly, not all of them had felt sufficiently confident to disclose these to their schools.

̽��ֱ��interviews revealed significant commonalities of experience. Perhaps surprisingly, the teachers were overwhelmingly positive about their relationships with pupils. Many had developed coping mechanisms to handle their disability in the classroom: for example, one dyslexic teacher explained how she actively used her disability as a basis for ad-hoc spelling challenges in class.

̽��ֱ��findings also suggest that disabled teachers can be highly empathetic and skilled at differentiating their teaching and learning methods to suit all students. By definition, they also help to make schools more inclusive and promote positive attitudes towards disabled people.

Most of those interviewed described a more problematic relationship with their fellow staff. Several said that they often felt lonely or undervalued at work, and were concerned that while colleagues were mindful of the challenges faced by disabled children, they displayed poor disability awareness with regard to adults. One participant described ‘a hostile environment’ every time she had to ask for adjustments to accommodate her disability; another, who has primary lymphodema in three limbs, said that whenever she took time off work, “you could feel their resentment when you came back”.

Nine of the 10 participants said they had experienced discriminatory practices at work. One teacher, who has myalgic encephalomyelitis and fibromyalgia, had been told she had to come into school after a flare-up left her in severe pain. “ ̽��ֱ��deputy head said: ‘grit your teeth and get on with it’,” she told the researchers.

Another teacher recounted being unable to use the approved colours for the school’s marking system (green and red) because she has scotopic sensitivity. When she devised an alternative solution, which involved giving pupils feedback using a computer, she was formally disciplined for not following official procedures.

In line with some of the teachers’ own comments, the authors argue that many of these problems emanate from systemic pressures. There is also some emerging, anecdotal evidence that the additional strain on schools caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which occurred after the research was completed, may have worsened the extent to which colleagues feel unable to accommodate disabled teachers’ needs. “These colleagues are typically well-meaning people who, outside school, would make every effort to accommodate a disabled person,” Singal said. “Part of the problem is that in school their only option is to get on with the job.”

̽��ֱ��research identifies several ‘levers for change’ that would improve disabled teachers’ experiences. Many participants highlighted the value of mentors, support networks, and of having senior leaders capable of empathising with the different demands that disabilities impose. “I don’t know if I am the first disabled PE teacher, but I feel like I am pretty much doing this by myself,” one participant told the authors. “It would be great to meet other disabled teachers.”

̽��ֱ��researchers therefore argue that there would be multiple benefits for disabled teachers and schools if more disabled people could be supported to enter the profession. Among other recommendations, they also highlight the need for more awareness training, particularly for school leaders.

Given the present study’s limited scale, the authors also call for more research and data-gathering about disabled teachers and their experiences in English schools. “This is not just an education issue: it’s part of a wider disenfranchisement of disabled people in the workplace,” Ware added. “But we stand more chance of resolving it in education by strengthening our understanding of disabled teachers’ experiences.”

̽��ֱ��findings are reported in the journal, Disability & Society.

One of the first academic studies to examine the working lives of disabled teachers in England has called for ‘urgent change’ after finding evidence of significant workplace discrimination and barriers to their career progression.

How can we possibly promote inclusivity in schools if it only extends to children?

Hannah Ware

Pixabay

Teaching a class

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Children with disabilities are being denied equal opportunities for a quality education across the world, including in the UK

fpjl2 — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 09:52:44 +0000

Countries, with both developed and developing economies, need to do more to ensure that children with disabilities not only access education, but also benefit from quality education.

In England, while children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) access school, multiple concerns have been raised in relation to their learning and quality of life in school. ̽��ֱ��educational attainments of these children are significantly lower than for those without SEND at every level of the national curriculum.

In 2017 the Department for Education reported that, at Key Stage 2 level, only 14% of children with SEND reached the expected level for reading, writing and maths (in contrast to 62% of children without SEND).

Socially, there has been an increase in incidents of bullying and hate crime in relation to children with SEND and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children highlights that they are significantly more likely to face abuse. Official statistics note that children with social, emotional, mental health needs are nine times more likely to face permanent exclusion from school.

̽��ֱ��World Health Organisation in collaboration with the World Bank recently emphasised that 15% of the world’s population, approximately one billion, live with some form of disability. Estimates for the number of children under the age of 14 living with disabilities range between 93m and 150m.

Across the world, people with disabilities have poorer health outcomes, lower educational achievements, less economic participation and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. This is partly because people with disabilities experience significant barriers in accessing basic services, including health, education and employment.

Amongst these, education is paramount as it has significant economic, social and individual returns. Education has the potential to lift people out of chronic poverty. Accessing quality education can improve learning outcomes which leads to positive economic growth. ̽��ֱ��Global Monitoring Report calculates that if all students living in low income countries were to leave school with basic reading skills there would be a 12% reduction in world poverty.

Additionally, education has the potential to create more equitable and healthy societies. For example, evidence shows educating mothers reduces early births, lowers infant mortality rates and improves child nutrition.

Furthermore, inclusive education is integral to creating societies that are interconnected, based on values of social justice, equity of opportunities and freedom. ̽��ֱ��Sustainable Development Goals have given a considerable boost to this vision of “inclusive and equitable quality education” with significant international proclamations and national legislations being drawn up. Nevertheless, children with disabilities continue to remain the most difficult to reach.

Including children with disabilities in education systems, and ensuring quality education, is a moral and ethical commitment with considerable benefits both at the individual and national level. ̽��ֱ��International Labour Organisation estimates that the exclusion of persons with disabilities from the work force costs nations up to 7% of the national GDP. Other estimates from China suggest that every additional year of schooling in rural areas means a 5-8% wage increase for the person with disabilities.

While there is a long way to go, there is little question that educational access is on an upward trajectory in many low and middle income countries. According to official data from India over the last five years there has been approximately 16% increase in the numbers of children with disabilities enrolled in mainstream primary schools.

Nonetheless, children who are most like to be excluded, even in states with high enrolment rates are those with disabilities. They are also most likely to drop out before completing five years of primary schooling and are least likely to transition to secondary school or higher education.

Across the globe, learning for children with disabilities remains a significant challenge. In order to address this, we need to invest in inclusive teaching and learning processes and not just changes to school infrastructure. Teachers need better training and support underpinned by principles of inclusion. Significantly, children with disabilities must be respected as important partners in creating better schools for all.

̽��ֱ��report has been produced for the World Innovation Summit for Education and will be presented this week at the summit in Doha.

Researchers from the Faculty of Education have produced a new report on the current state of education for children with disabilities in both England and India. Here, Dr Nidhi Singal, one of the report’s authors, outlines some of the key statistics, and argues that teachers need better training and more support “underpinned by principles of inclusion”.

We need to invest in inclusive teaching and learning processes and not just changes to school infrastructure

Nidhi Singal

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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Education that adds up

lw355 — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 08:17:10 +0000

It’s a numbers game. Three million households, seven million children, 30,000 volunteers, and a decade of assessing the basic reading and maths abilities of 3–16-year olds across India.

This is the size of the largest non-governmental survey of the state of Indian education ever conducted, and it’s a key source of information for communities and policymakers on children’s learning outcomes available in India today. ̽��ֱ��Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) is all the more impressive given the deceptive simplicity and fundamental importance of the question it seeks to answer: how many children are learning the basics in mathematics and reading?

But the numbers have to be huge given what’s at stake. ̽��ֱ��education system in India is in crisis; in rural areas, fewer than one in five poor children of around 11 years of age have even the most basic of literacy and numeracy skills, although most have been in school for five years. And it’s a pattern echoed worldwide in what UNESCO has declared “a global learning crisis” – even after going to school, 250 million children globally cannot read, write or count.

“What’s the point in an education if children emerge after years in school without the skills they need?” says Professor Pauline Rose from Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, whose team collaborates with the organisation in India responsible for ASER. “ ̽��ֱ��rhetoric about education used to be about giving children access to school but now it must also be about making sure they learn what they need to learn once they are there.”

Rose was previously Director of UNESCO’s Education for All Global Monitoring Report. In 2014, the Report assembled the first evidence on the scale of the education crisis. “There was already a debate rumbling. It was becoming clear that increasing the number of children enrolling in school was not enough. But the report brought the evidence into one place. That number of 250 million children without basic skills slaps you in the face – you can’t ignore it. It’s also an entry point to understanding why we have got to this situation and what we can do about it.”

Rose leads Cambridge’s Research for Equitable Access and Learning (REAL) Centre, which has highlighted some of the factors that limit children’s learning in India and Pakistan. Among them are an over-ambitious curriculum that leaves children behind and a lack of training and support for teachers, who may themselves be the product of a poor education.

Now the Centre has been awarded funding by the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) to look at ways to improve the effectiveness of teaching quality in India and Pakistan.

“Education increases opportunities in life, it can pull people out of poverty, with better jobs and higher wages; for girls, education often results in delaying marriage and having fewer children, who as a result are healthier,” she explains. “Nationally, a young, educated workforce can transform the wealth of a country.”

India has made a significant investment in schooling over the past decade, achieving near universal enrolment in primary education. According to government figures, around 195 million children are currently in primary school. However, the question of how effective is the teaching within the classroom has largely been overlooked.

Over the past few months, Rose and Dr Ben Alcott have been using the ASER datasets, covering all of rural India, to identify the extent to which children are learning and who in particular is being left behind.

“Among the most disadvantaged girls, fewer than 10% are learning by the time they should have had five years in school,” says Rose. “Some aren’t learning because they’ve dropped out of school, others because of the poor quality of education. Governments, schools and teachers have tended to focus on the more advantaged, able children. But to close educational inequalities, they must focus on the disadvantaged, whether it’s by poverty, gender, caste or disability.”

Rose and Alcott suggest five key steps: encourage children to start school as young as possible; set the curriculum at the right pace for the majority of learners, not the minority of able learners; train teachers to teach the most disadvantaged learners; provide schools with appropriate textbooks in the right language; and hold schools and policy makers accountable for improving learning outcomes for those who would otherwise be left behind.

Of course, improving the quality of education requires a better understanding of what is actually going on in the classroom. In the newly funded ESRC–DFID programme, Rose, Professor Anna Vignoles and Dr Nidhi Singal are working with an independent education research group in India – Collaborative Research and Dissemination (CORD) – to create a new dataset that will follow children through their learning experience, from home to school.

Singal’s focus is on children with disabilities: “In many cases, children with disabilities are given access to mainstream school just for ‘socialisation purposes' – there’s an assumption that they are not there to learn.

“My reason for researching what happens to children with disabilities in school is not only to do with issues around social justice and human rights, but also because problems will be magnified for the most marginalised of the marginalised – if teaching can be more effective for this group then it can respond to the needs of all disadvantaged children.”

̽��ֱ��research will assess children both in the household and in schools, testing their basic skills on a yearly basis. ̽��ֱ��aim is to identify what makes a difference to learning, and to understand the problems teachers face and the support they need.

“There’s a big debate on how the global Sustainable Development Goal of all children learning by 2030 can be achieved,” adds Rose. “This project will help understand what we need to do to make sure we are not failing children who are coming from some of the most disadvantaged of backgrounds.”

Will governments take notice? “I don’t think we as researchers can always go knocking on doors and say look at our evidence. But I do think that, through the networks that CORD and ASER have, this research can have an influence. These partnerships are really central to what we do: it’s no good us sitting here doing all this wonderful research if it’s not actually changing anything for children’s experiences on the ground.”

As part of the Festival of Ideas and WOW Cambridge, Pauline Rose is participating in a panel discussion on this topic with Philippa Lei from the Malala Fund on October 27. Visit http://www.equality.admin.cam.ac.uk/events/school for more information.

We are in the midst of a “global learning crisis” according to UNESCO, with too many children worldwide learning little or nothing at school. A new research programme focusing on India and Pakistan aims to understand what needs to be done to ensure that education adds up.

That number of 250 million children without basic skills slaps you in the face – you can’t ignore it.

Pauline Rose

Global Partnership for Education

India: Teaching Girls

Let Them Learn

Professor Pauline Rose will take part in discussion hosted by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and Georgetown ̽��ֱ�� in Washington DC on 30 November 2015 to follow up on Michelle Obama’s announcement of a UK-US initiative as part of the Let Girls Learn campaign.

̽��ֱ��event will bring together key stakeholders to identify the biggest challenges to girls’ education in conflict settings, with the aim of developing a research agenda that will provide policymakers with evidence-based policy recommendations.

Specifically, during the First Lady’s visit to the UK in June 2015, the USA and UK committed to building an evidence-base around increasing access to education and enhancing learning for girls in conflict and crisis situations, including in refugee and internally displaced person settings. ̽��ֱ��event will be hosted by the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Vice Chancellor Professor Sir Leszek Borysiewicz and Ambassador Melanne Verveer.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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