– By Rasha Mohammed El-Ouarradi –

In many parts of the world, children with disabilities remain some of the most marginalized groups in education. In order to realize education for all in Qatar, experts say policymakers here must develop a strategy to support inclusive education.

Hasna Nada, a Qatari mother of a 10-year-old autistic child, said she struggled with limited resources when she discovered that her son Faisal needed specialist support. At first, she had him take Applied Behavior Analysis therapy sessions at home with private therapists before she established the Child Development Center in 2013, which provides support for children with autism and other developmental delays.

Lack of Inclusive Schools

The Child Development Center is one of the few centers in Qatar providing ABA therapy supervised by board-certified behavior analysts. The center also provides speech therapy, language therapy, occupational therapy, and an early intervention program. The center is open to children of both nationals and expats.

Kamila Janik, the clinical program lead at CDC, said that many children who are enrolled in the center are on the waiting lists of both mainstream schools and specialized schools for children with special needs.

“While they are waiting, parents want to get as many sessions as possible so that the child is not wasting time,” Janik said.

In many cases, children with special needs are not prepared to be placed into mainstream school environments, according to Janik. A mainstream school is one that is not focused on pupils with special needs. The CDC’s aim is to provide the necessary support to these children and help them integrate into a mainstream environment.

“Some children are not ready for a school placement, and they need to receive some individual sessions before they can enroll in a school,” she said.

Alison Saraf is a mother of a seven-year-old boy and one of the founders of Sensory Souk, an online outlet that sells high quality therapy products to support special-need children and their parents in Qatar and the Gulf. She said she faced difficulties when she discovered that her son was autistic at 18 months old.

“For me, I was just very concerned about where I was going to find the information that I needed, how I was going to find the support that I needed,” Saraf said.

Saraf and her husband moved to Qatar in 2010 when their son Noah was only four weeks old. When she realized that he needed therapy, the CDC did not even exist.

Before he began receiving treatment, Noah did not speak. At first, he received ABA therapy sessions at home. But with the opening of the CDC, Saraf had a new avenue that could assist her in finding help for her child.

Therapy has helped Noah progress from being non-verbal to verbal and being able to integrate into mainstream society, she said.

“We were very fortunate that we managed to get my son into [GEMS American Academy] in Al Wakra. They got an exceptional team,” Saraf said.

In 2016, more than 5,800 children under the age of 5 to 19 were registered at various disabled centers in Qatar, according to the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (3,257 non-Qataris and 2,547 Qataris).

But in an email, the Ministry of Education and Higher Education stated that the total number of disabled children enrolled in schools in Qatar, mainstream or specialized, amounted to only 1,360 students. Furthermore, according to statistics provided by the ministry, as of 2017 there were only 50 inclusive schools in Qatar. These are schools that give all children, including those with disabilities, equitable access to education within a mainstream environment.

Parents say a lack of inclusive schools in Qatar is leaving children with special needs with limited options for their education.

“I should have the same open door quality for my son that I do have for my girl, and unfortunately that is not the case here,” Saraf said.

However, Qatar has adopted several initiatives to implement inclusive education for children with disabilities. According to Faryal Khan, Ed.D., an education programme specialist at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization office in Doha, the organization is committed to realizing the UN 2030 sustainable development goal on education, which is to ensure quality and inclusive education for all.

“UNESCO provides technical advice to the Ministry of Education in inclusive education and more recently organized a symposium on inclusive education policy in Qatar, bringing together specialists in education, as well as special-needs education to discuss strategic options to enable inclusive education within the mainstream education system,” Khan said.

During the symposium, decision-makers visited schools as well as the Shafallah Center, a health center for children with special needs, to gain insights into the different strengths and challenges that Qatar faces when it comes to developing an inclusive education system in the country.

Early Education

Homayra Billah, the owner and founder of Kanga’s Pouch Nursery, said that from a special-needs perspective, the nursery only accepts kids that are high functioning with either moderate disabilities or learning deficiencies. Like many nurseries in Qatar, Kanga’s Pouch Nursery cannot provide a full-time specialized staff for children with special needs “just from a financial standpoint.”

“We have a clinic, we have a nurse, but it is really important that we do not take on children that require constant medical care,” Billah said. “For more serious conditions where a child would need constant one-to-one support, where they are low functioning, then that is when we would say, ‘no they need specialist support.’”

Kanga’s Pouch Nursery carries out individual educational developmental plans for children with special needs. However, in some cases, kids keep struggling or display signs of a sudden change in behavior, meaning they require extra support.

“We have had children that have needed to move on to a specialist center, because we have not been able to provide full-time support. Because we do not have government backing, we cannot provide that support,” Billah explained. “I would not take the responsibility of a child if I cannot ensure that I am giving them the highest possible level of care.”

Specialized Schools

Qatar Foundation’s Renad Academy opened its doors in September 2016 to provide educational services to children with autism spectrum disorder. The academy currently only accepts Qatari nationals starting at three years old, and as the children grow older and progress, the academy adds a grade level each subsequent year.

Fiza Mir Abbas, a speech language pathologist, described Renad Academy as a place where children can receive an individualized education from special-education teachers, assistants and well-trained educational therapists, using ABA therapy and TEACCH methodology (Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication related handicapped CHildren).

“We do work on academics, we do work on body parts, things that any child would learn in a school, but the way we teach it is very different and it is at the level of the child,” Abbas said.

Abbas said that for some children, it is better to place them in specialized schools to give them a much better chance of success before integrating them into mainstream schools.

“It is more beneficial for them to be in an environment that gives them that one-on-one training and once they are ready we always want to include them in an inclusive set-up,” Abbas said.

Sherri Miller, the director of Renad Academy, said the school has 12 classrooms and only 34 students. Last year, the school had only 24 pupils but next year it will have 52 pupils, she added.

The academy also has approximately 40 students on its waiting list. According to Miller, the size of the school’s building is what prevents them from enrolling more students.

“Qatar Foundation is working on building us a building. Once that’s opened, then we will be able to take many more students of all grades,” she said.

Miller said the long waiting lists at many specialized and mainstream schools “tell us that there are not enough services in Qatar.”

“Currently, programs to support students with autism spectrum disorder in Qatar are limited and cannot meet current needs,” Abbas added.

“Our school and QF are helping support other schools and centers in their development because we are not in competition. There are too many kids with autism, and we are just trying to support each other and make sure we are all doing good practices and we can all expand our programs,” Miller said.

Awsaj Academy, another Qatar Foundation institution, was established in 1996 “to serve special-need education students, students with disabilities, students with learning challenges, [and] students that do not fit the traditional system,” said Sam Abrams, the alternative learning coordinator at the academy.

Awsaj Academy accepts Qatari nationals at every level of learning, including elementary, middle and high school. However, the academy also has a long waiting list.

Abrams explained that every school should have special-needs services, which would alleviate the long wait lists across the country. He said that although it is happening slowly, Qatar is transitioning into inclusivity in its educational system.

“I am here to help Qatar make that transition, to have that inclusivity,” Abrams said.

Sara Al Kuwari, 16, has VACTERL association disorder. She said she was rejected by many mainstream schools in Qatar because they do not provide specialized educational services to students with special needs.

“I think that schools should treat special kids equal. I think it is wrong that they do not accept us the way they accept other students,” Al Kuwari said.

Creating an Inclusive Educational System

Schools must take disabilities into consideration in order to help students flourish, Abrams said. Students who are struggling should not despair either. “It is just a disability, it does not mean you are different. It just means you have to learn a little bit different, or you have to be treated a little different, or you have to make eye contact a little differently,” he said. “Every human deserves the best, Qatar deserves the best.”

Inclusivity is crucial, experts agree.

“[UNESCO] advocates for an inclusive approach on the principle that separate is not equal. We believe that education systems need to respond to diversity of needs within mainstream education systems, rather than through separate schools,” Khan said.

“For progressive education to come along and for these children to be able to develop more within mainstream society, it is important that we allow them to come in to a normal mainstream nursery, a normal mainstream school,” Billah concurred.

But including disabled children in mainstream classroom settings is not something that can be achieved over night in Qatar. Everyone has to contribute to lift the barriers that currently prevent school inclusion in the existing educational system, Billah added.

“I think it is really important for children to be able to be exposed to all kinds of people, all kinds of cultures, all kinds of religions, and then similarly all kinds of disabilities as well,” she said. “It does nothing, but teach them good things.”