Attention to disability
UNICEF works on strengthening capacities of teachers and principals to provide specialized care to children and adolescents
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Challenges
The 2012 Population and Housing Census in Cuba registered 41,374 children and adolescents with disabilities. Visually impaired children and those with intellectual disability accounted for 57 per cent of the total, with prevalence in the rural sector. Cuba has 355 special schools with an enrolment of 33,975 children and adolescents with disabilities (81 per cent of them with intellectual disability) in the 2017-2018 school year. At the same time, 1,978 mainstream school centres at all levels provide educational care to 11,037 children and adolescents with disabilities.
Up to 2019, UNICEF has contributed to the training of 548 specialists from all 16 provinces in the country so they can provide specialized care to children and adolescents with disabilities in mainstream schools. However, there are still capacity gaps in teachers and families related to differentiated care practices for children and adolescents with disabilities, with a focus on mainstream education in the rural sector.
Strategies
UNICEF works on strengthening the capacities of teachers, principals and families in the rural sector and socially-complex areas to provide specialized attention to children and adolescents with intellectual disabilities and autism who attend mainstream schools and improve the quality of the educational service.
UNICEF also works in a communication for development strategy in order to promote inclusive education and social inclusion for children and adolescents with disabilities.
By 2024, UNICEF expects to have trained more than 800 specialists and teachers from at least 30 municipalities across the country so they have the capacities to address the differences of children and adolescents with intellectual disability and autism who attend mainstream school, with an emphasis on the rural sector and socially-complex areas.