Making educational research count for children with disabilities in Malawi, Kenya and Uganda

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This project aims to address the exclusion of disabled children in Africa from quality education. It will do so by establishing a wide network of partners from a variety of sectors including UK and African universities, NGOs, educational managers and coordinators, practitioners and government staff in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda.Foremost, the project will build on the current collaborations between the University of Birmingham, the University of Cambridge, the International NGO Sightsavers and specialist education communities in the three target countries, Kenya, Malawi and Uganda.The project will draw on existing primary research to address a number of issues around the current educational support available for children with visual impairment, focusing on Malawi, Uganda and Kenya. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the capacity of our local partners allowing them to set their own research agendas and inform the development of effective education systems. In order to successfully target this implementation gap, the key aspects to be addressed are:- Insufficient measures to implement research findings designed to develop new practices in the classroom;- Lack of evidence available to local stakeholders, (including lack of information in an accessible or understandable format);- Constraints posed by insufficient capacities of local actors to interpret research findings and their transferability;- Challenges posed by the isolation from a wider academic community involved in education research.The above points will be addressed with reference to existing research in a series of eight interactive work packages involving all stakeholders, ensuring a reciprocal flow of knowledge between all parties. The key output will be to establish an innovative online community which will enable the free flow of information in the form of webinars, podcasts, topical forum discussion, the submission of publications and blog posts. Stakeholders will be encouraged to continue to contribute to this community after the initial 12-month period, establishing a space where ongoing future research can be discussed and developed. The intention is that the research outputs from this international online community will influence policy in the area of the education of children and young people with visual impairment and across a broader disability agenda in Africa.