According to the 2018 Human Development Index (HDI) report, Niger is back at the bottom of the world rankings (189th out of 189). The education sector in Niger faces various challenges that undermine the progress made.

# Universal primary education and primary school completion are hampered by high population growth, low enrolment and high drop-out rates.

# Access and completion rates are even lower among vulnerable groups, including girls in rural areas, nomadic children, and children with disabilities.

# Frequent climatic shocks also affect Niger's education sector and the country is not spared by the security crisis in the Sahel, which is forcing a significant number of schools to shut down.

According to the 2018 Human Development Index (HDI) report, Niger is back at the bottom of the world rankings (189th out of 189). The education sector in Niger faces various challenges that undermine the progress made.

# Universal primary education and primary school completion are hampered by high population growth, low enrolment and high drop-out rates.

# Access and completion rates are even lower among vulnerable groups, including girls in rural areas, nomadic children, and children with disabilities.

# Frequent climatic shocks also affect Niger's education sector and the country is not spared by the security crisis in the Sahel, which is forcing a significant number of schools to shut down.

Niger signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) in March 2007 and ratified it on 24 June 2008 together with its Optional Protocol. An analysis of the legislative and regulatory framework shows that existing texts promoting the rights of persons with disabilities have evolved in their favour. However, the poor allocation of resources and the low level of awareness of these texts among public officials, people with disabilities and, above all, the general public lead to weak enforcement.

There are three educational approaches in Niger: Special education, integrated education, and inclusive education.

# There are still customs that portray disability as a sign of punishment from God or evil spirits (djinns)

# Parents of children without disabilities sometimes believe that children with disabilities will "infect" the classroom and do not want their children to attend classes with children with disabilities

# Others regard a person with a disability as someone who must be pitied and given alms, rather than a person with equal rights. People with disabilities are ignored, and the family invests little in them because they are said to be unproductive.

According to the president of the Niger Federation of People with Disabilities (FNPH), in the Songhay-Zarma community, which includes the Tuaregs, a person with a disability is viewed with compassion and is even over-protected by the family in order to avoid criticism from society. For example, blind people do not know how to put on their clothes. People with disabilities are almost hidden and are rarely seen. This may explain why there are no people with disabilities among beggars in Agadez and Diffa.

People with physical disabilities are generally less stigmatised than people with sensory impairments, albino people, people with leprosy, and people with psychological or neurological disorders, who are ostracised.

According to the UNICEF study, reports of parents hiding children with disabilities in their homes were widespread, as were reports of neglect and marginalisation by other family members. Some parents deny that they have children with disabilities and hide them because of shame. They do not include their children with disabilities in household surveys and do not have birth certificates issued for them.

People with hysteria or dementia attacks are rejected because they are thought to be possessed by evil, potentially dangerous spirits.

Families looking for ways to solve their children's health problems are sensitive to “miracle healing” stories. The parents we encountered while working on the study often visited marabouts and traditional healers first (and sometimes exclusively), but in the end the condition of the child worsened, as was the case for Sarah, 17, who is out of school, does housework, and begs to support her family:

In Niger, 98% of the population are Muslims. In Maradi the economic capital, which is on the border with Nigeria, the population is renowned for being particularly conservative as far as religion is concerned. In the eyes of parents, attending Koranic school is considered an asset for the integration of young people in a community that is based on Islamic values, while some people have a low opinion of secular education. For fear that sending girls to school would be contrary to customs and social norms, some families do not send their daughters to a mainstream school, but rather to Koranic school for a shorter time (focus group discussions with fathers and mothers of children with disabilities, Maradi).

The traditional perception of the role of girls not only determines the decision to send them to school or not, but also how long they stay in school. In some circles, they are forced to marry very early.

Some studies have identified the religious factor as one of the main barriers to girls' schooling. Islam is said to be less favorable to the schooling of girls. According to the Regional Director of Population in Maradi, it is crucial to raise awareness among Muslim religious leaders about gender inequalities and disability because they have an important influence on families:

Socio-cultural and socio-economic factors play a significant role in a family’s decision not to send a girl to school or to take her out of school. Families and communities often favour boys at the expense of girls, resulting in differences in educational opportunities and outcomes.

Some parents told us they were “afraid of 'wasting their money' on educating their daughters because they may get pregnant or get married before they complete their education”. Girls, once married, are generally considered members of another family, so that parents’ investment in girls is considered lost. In addition, sending girls to school may be a barrier to marriage because of widely held perceptions about educated girls. This is why parents do not want to leave their daughters in school for too long. For example, socio-cultural expectations of girls and the priority given to their future role as wives and mothers have a strong negative impact on their educational opportunities.

The decision to enrol a girl will depend on the economic and social benefits perceived by parents and people in their immediate environment. Sending girls to school entails prohibitive direct and opportunity costs for families, especially for poor rural families, as they lose important labour for agropastoral activities as well as for economic and domestic activities.

But according to the Regional Directorate of Primary Education, “this mentality is changing. There are almost as many girls as boys in school now.”

The director of the Soli school for blind youth in Niamey says that girls drop out more than boys do because girls have to look after their families.

I remember a brilliant blind girl who had to leave school because her father became ill. We met her during one of our social surveys. Both her parents were beggars, and so was she. As soon as children start begging, it's over. You can't get them back. Parents need to be made aware!

In Niger, children are often at the heart of the survival strategies that households develop in the face of poverty and vulnerability. This results in their early introduction into the labour market, which often exposes them to precarious living and working conditions from an early age.

Child labour is a common phenomenon in Niger, even for very young children and children from wealthy families. Both boys and girls are affected by the phenomenon.

The study found that despite their disability, both boys and girls participate in household chores and economic activities at home.

However, when they are in school or have a severe disability, they work less than other children without disabilities.

Early and/or forced marriage affects the great majority of girls in Niger. Niger has the highest rate of early marriage in West Africa. One in four girls aged 15 to 19 (25%) marries before age 15, and more than three quarters of women (77%) marry before age 18.

Early marriage most often leads to early pregnancies as well as pregnancies in close succession, and thus constitutes a major obstacle to girls' schooling. The fertility rate of Nigerien women remains high, at 7.3 children per woman in 2015. It is higher in rural areas than in urban areas. The fertility rate of adolescent girls is particularly high. Thus, 44% of women aged 15-19 are either pregnant with their first child or already have at least one child (2015).

Socio-economic status can influence attitudes towards disability. The most disadvantaged people with disabilities can be more stigmatised than people with disabilities who are well off. If the person is well off, gender becomes secondary: for example, a girl with a disability from a wealthy family is more likely to be enrolled and remain in school than a poor boy with a disability or a poor girl without a disability.

The main concern for the stakeholders interviewed is the exploitation of children with disabilities due to the poverty of households.

The problem of educating children with disabilities is primarily a problem of poverty. We cannot dissociate disability from poverty. When a girl with a disability comes from a wealthy family, people don't even talk about her disability. She will have no problem going to school. Poor families usually tell me this: “We have understood that we have to send our children to school, but we don't have the means; what we want is food!” Another parent told me one day: “In the past, he earned me 2,500 francs a day (by begging). Now that he's with you, he earns me nothing!” (The Secretary General of the Maradi 1 Town Hall and Social Affairs Officer).

DPOs note that children with disabilities often end up as beggars, and children of persons with disabilities as guides for their parents. Children are an important source of income for families. Even today, the overwhelming majority of people with disabilities still survive by begging. Begging is undertaken by both boys and girls with disabilities.

It appears from the interviews that the lack or the cost of transport is one of the main causes of dropouts, because special schools are mainly located in large cities, and inclusive schools are still few in number.

"Travel is too expensive, especially when the child has multiple disabilities. Almost all out-of-school children with disabilities live on the periphery. Some parents make the effort to take their child to school, but when they are away from home, no one takes care of them." (Secretary General of the Maradi 1 Town Hall and Social Affairs Officer).

"Even when parents received a scholarship from the Ministry of Population to pay for school fees, transport and the canteen, they stopped taking the child to school because the transport costs were too high. Travel is a major problem for parents. A school bus should be made available." (Director of Pelican, a centre for people with intellectual disabilities).

According to DPOs, deaf people find it more difficult than blind people to study and succeed in school. They practise lipreading due to the lack of professional sign language interpreters and they do not go beyond upper secondary school.

According to the Director of the Maradi School for the Deaf:

Deaf students are not assessed properly at the baccalaureate exam. They often fail. They then seek vocational training, or the best ones go to Burkina Faso to continue their studies. Deaf children mainly have problems in literature and philosophy because of the syntax of sign language which has no verbs.

On the other hand, they do not have problems in science, unlike visually impaired students who are exempted from maths from Year 5 onwards. The baccalaureate exam for deaf children should also be adapted, for example by replacing the essay test with another more suitable test.

The headmistress of the Soli School in Niamey confirms that “children with visual impairment can go far in their studies, sometimes as far as the National School of Administration (ENA). Some of them come back to teach here.” The school was founded in 1979. It has a canteen and a boarding school with about 60 beds for boys and girls.

From Year 4 onwards, visually impaired children can join a mainstream school if they want to, with the authorisation of their parents. A UNAN car picks up the written exercises, and the association transcribes them, with a long delay. But you cannot send blind children from Year 1 directly into a mainstream classroom without teachers trained in Braille. It would be a waste of time and they would come back here. It is best if the child studies Braille for several years in a special classroom first before integrating into a mainstream classroom, with the support of a peripatetic teacher. This is our goal. Also, the government could train more Braille teachers, as Braille can be learned in just one month. And we can train them.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has identified gaps in the inclusion of persons with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities. The Niger delegation has announced the creation of a programme for the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities. An intersectoral committee in charge of this issue has also been set up.

A visit was organised to the Diori School in Maradi, which is supported by HI. The principal introduced us to a young boy with an intellectual disability who was enrolled in a mainstream classroom.

When he arrived, he was dirty, he was drooling and he couldn't speak. Today he is clean and he is able to sing the national anthem and fetch things. He has made remarkable progress in terms of socialising with the other children.

The UNICEF study highlighted the alarming level of sexual violence in Niger, which most often takes place within the family. While girls and women with disabilities experience various forms of violence, this violence is not considered sexist because their disability masks their gender. Although there is a lack of data on violence against children with disabilities, studies show that abuse of women with disabilities far exceeds abuse of women without disabilities. Girls with disabilities are also more vulnerable than boys with disabilities and more likely to be abused, mistreated and sexually assaulted. Violence against women and girls with disabilities is not a sub-category of gender-based violence: it is a cross-cutting category intersecting gender-based violence and disability. The convergence of these two factors results in an extremely high risk of violence against women and girls with disabilities.

Girls with disabilities, especially girls with psychosocial and intellectual disabilities, communication disorders or visual impairments are particularly vulnerable because it is assumed that they are not able to reveal what has happened and identify the perpetrators. Girls with intellectual disabilities and girls with albinism are particularly vulnerable to physical and sexual violence because of popular belief that having sex with them or owning parts of their bodies can make you rich. In addition, girls with disabilities are often considered asexual. Some believe that sex with a virgin girl can cure HIV, and the common erroneous assumption that people with disabilities are sexually inactive and therefore virgin and free of sexually transmitted diseases also makes them vulnerable to attackers who consider them as safe sexual partners.

Yahanazu says that she has been approached many times by men, but her family had warned her and is protecting her:

I would like to get married, but it is very difficult. I have already been approached by boys, but God has not decided yet that I’ll marry. When boys approach me, my brothers think they want to take advantage of me. When the boys are asked to come forward, they disappear. On two occasions, boys asked me to go with them to a house that they are building, saying that they want to marry me. I told my mother and she said no to both of them. When I walk around, there are boys who bother me. My parents have told me that if they talk to me, I shouldn't pay attention to them.

Parents of children with disabilities are key to the educational success of girls with disabilities and in raising awareness among other parents of children with disabilities. It has been observed that the vast majority of parents of children with disabilities are influenced by sociocultural burdens that lead to discrimination, desertion or seclusion.

Furthermore, they are often unaware that children with disabilities can learn and be successful in school. Most of them do not know about the existence of special schools, neither do they know that their children with disabilities have the right to attend public schools.

Political, religious and traditional leaders exercise great influence in their communities. They can play a crucial role in raising awareness. Although religion – both Islam and Christianity – encourages benevolence towards people with disabilities, believers sometimes do not demonstrate open-mindedness.

In contrast to Burkina Faso, where DPOs have spearheaded inclusive education, inclusive education in Niger has been driven by international organisations, including HI, which implements projects in cooperation with state structures. The special education structures run by DPOs are located in the capital and in large urban centres such as Maradi and Zinder. They would like to invest in inclusive education and establish their own inclusive schools, but they lack partners and funding.

The first problem to overcome is the problem of identifying children with disabilities because they are usually hidden by their families.

In the education sector, there is a marked shortage of skilled teachers trained in the inclusive approach, both in special education institutions and in state schools. Teachers are seen to have a key role to play in getting children into school (for example, by preventing early marriage).