Quality inclusive education
Quality inclusive education, to increase access to quality inclusive education and learning opportunities for all children.
UNICEF will support the Government of Turkmenistan to achieve the overall result that by 2025, all boys and girls in Turkmenistan, especially those with disabilities, equitably enjoy quality inclusive education and learning opportunities that develop their competencies and foster their well-being.
Background:
Transitioning to 12-year compulsory education system allowed Turkmenistan to make decisive steps to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Teachers need additional skills and knowledge on child and adolescent development and on interactive methodologies which take into account learning needs of all girls and boys, including those with disabilities. Curricula and teaching methods need to be further improved, including enhanced digital learning opportunities, to support the development of necessary skills to prepare children for demands of the modern society and economy. Climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction topics are gradually being introduced into the school curricula. Although 99.6 per cent of young women are literate, significantly fewer girls than boys continue their education into universities.
Half of children of pre-primary school age participate in organized learning. In addition, there are Saturday parent schools to cover children who do not attend. For further development of teaching techniques, additional human and financial resources are required. An area of priority is to lift the literacy-numeracy ECD indicator of children aged 3-4 years from the current 20 percent on-track to reach the good level of other ECD benchmarks in physical and psycho-social growth that are close to 95 percent nationally. For 90 percent of young children 2 to 4 years of age, an adult is regularly engaged in four or more activities promoting early stimulation and responsive care. While fathers’ engagement average nationally is 13 percent, the indicator is less than 5 percent in three velayats.
Social inclusion of children with developmental delays remains a challenge. Many of about 4,000 children with disabilities in institutions could be assisted to stay with their families and attend regular schools. There is a need to address the stigmatization of disability, especially concerning girls, and to replace the “medical” model with the “social” one. Introduction of new disciplines such as early communication, physical and occupational therapy, psycho-social support, trans-disciplinary service, under the national ECD Strategy for 2020-2025 aims to ensure comprehensive service provision for children with disabilities and their families towards their social inclusion. Also, the development of a social work profession in Turkmenistan, which has been launched through the SDG Joint Programme will support the deinstitutionalization agenda through the development of community based social services which aim to support families caring for children with disabilities.
UNICEF’s work with partners will focus on two main areas of intervention to contribute to achieving this result:
UNICEF will increase policy advice and technical support to the Ministry of Education in rolling out a universal one-year pre-primary preparation programme with domestic financing.
- Strengthening pre-and in-service training of childcare professionals
- Implementing 1-year half-day pre-primary curriculum in line with Turkmenistan SDG 4.2 commitment
- Strengthening quality assurance and monitoring of early learning and pre-primary education services
- Supporting children with developmental delays towards their inclusion into mainstream kindergartens
- Supporting cross-sectoral inter-ministerial collaboration for the implementation of the national ECD Strategy
UNICEF will provide support in raising the quality of learning at primary and secondary levels, starting with the revision and upgrading of curricula in line with international standards and norms, and introduction of more interactive, child-centred teaching practices that support the development of both foundational and transferable life skills and competencies.
- Providing capacity-building support for design and application of reliable learning-assessment systems
- Supporting further development of education management information system based on international standards and national priorities
- Enhancing opportunities for learning through support for distance and blended learning platforms
- Supporting introduction of competency-based teaching methods in schools
- Supporting the development of a concept for inclusive education and promotion of inclusive education policy
- Integrating of disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation into the school curricula, with the active participation of children and communities and prototyping ‘Green School’ concept