Date: Main Conference – 22 February 2014. Student Conference – 21 February 2014.
Venue: Aras Moyola, NUI Galway
Education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of most other human rights. The right to education promotes individual freedom and enables people to exercise other human rights, such as the right to vote or the right to free speech. Education is a powerful tool, one which can ensure that those who are marginalized in society can lift themselves out of poverty and participate as citizens: a right that should be denied to none, and provided equally to all. In 1954 the seminal decision of Brown v. Board of Education, outlawed the discriminatory notion of separate but equal, unfortunately this theory was never fully embraced when we consider education for people with disabilities. In the context of children with disabilities we segregate and separate them from the peers on the basis of their disability. Thus sixty years after Brown v Board of Education (1954) separate educational provision is still the norm for many children with disabilities throughout Europe. In 2006 the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities entered into force. That Convention recognizes the right to education for people with disabilities, and the right it recognizes is the right to inclusive education. This conference aims to explore the concept of inclusive education, what is meant by inclusive education and what can lawyers do to ensure that the right to inclusive education becomes a reality for all.
For further information please contact the conference organisers
Shivaun Quinlivan, NUI Galway: shivaun.quinlivan@nuigalway.ie
Gauthier deBeco, KU Leuven: gauther.debeco@law.kuleuven.be