Inclusive Education and Sustainable Peace in Africa

Abstract

Inclusive education is an innovative approach to education by which all children, youths and adults on the globe have equal opportunities to learn comfortably in the same academic environment regardless their intellectual and physical ability/disability and irrespective of their political, ethnic and socio-economic background. It is a brain child of UNESCO (the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization); part of its Education For All (EFA) initiative which seeks to overcome the global challenges of marginalization, discrimination and exclusion. In this light, this paper examines the concept of inclusive education as a means of attaining long-lasting peace in Africa, which in turn will rekindle socio-economic and political progress. The paper provides copious evidence of the fact that socio-economic and political exclusion and marginalization are major sources of conflict and instability in Africa. Its underlying assumption is that inclusive education is a sure means of attaining optimum integral development and sustainable peace in Africa.

Keywords: Inclusive education, sustainable peace in Africa