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Educational inclusion relates to all children accessing and meaningfully participating in quality education, in ways that are responsive to their individual needs. The terms ‘inclusion’ and ‘inclusive education’ are often used in relation to children with disabilities and/or special needs and emerged partly out of debates to reduce their segregation from mainstream schooling.In recent years, these terms have been used by the Education for All (EFA) movement in relation to all children who are marginalised and excluded from basic education, not just in terms of initial access to schooling, but access to rights within schooling processes. United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) identifies inclusion as “…a process of addressing and responding to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from education.”

According to UNESCO, inclusion “…involves changes and modifications in content, approaches, structures and strategies, with a common vision which covers all children of the appropriate age range and a conviction that it is the responsibility of the regular system to educate all children.”  

Nancy Walters, the chief of school feeding policy at WFP, told a New York forum on hunger that the programmes have many benefits beyond the immediate goal of ensuring children do not go hungry. They help children stay in class, reduce levels of diseases and other health problems, empower girls, lift education standards and free many youngsters from having to work.

Some 66 million schoolchildren in dozens of countries currently receive meals through the programmes, and Ms. Walters said WFP would continue to fund and implement them with the help of its current partners.

"We have seen the impact of fortified biscuits on anaemia levels in Bangladesh, for example. We know about the impacts in terms of gender, social protection, stability, income transfer, freed parental labour, combating child labour impacts and how school feeding can be a platform to local production, nutrition, hygiene and HIV information." She also emphasized their value to efforts to reach the social and economic targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which have a target date of 2015.

GANVIE, Benin, 16 December 2010 – In the past two months, Benin has experienced some of its worst floods since the 1960s. And now, students in the flood zone are returning to school under harsh conditions.

"In this classroom, we have children from two classrooms. Each of them had already around 90 children before the floods, " explains David Houngbadji, the Ganvie school's director. "Now in this very room, we teach a class of 185 children. We don't even have the benches to seat them all."

Most of the floodwaters have now receded and the United Nations, along with the government of Benin, is putting in place a long-term response to the crisis. Yet 105,000 school children across Benin are still unable to attend school on a regular basis. In some places, the classrooms are still unreachable.

Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, today condemned the demolition of homes, and partial demolition of a school, by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on 12 January in the Bedouin herding community of Dkaika, in the West Bank. He said: "I condemn this demolition in the strongest terms. Fifty people have been made homeless, including 30 children, many of whom were about to take an exam when the bulldozers arrived to destroy part of their school. Instead of sitting down to their exam, the children faced the traumatic scene of watching their homes and classroom be demolished. This is unacceptable.

Since yesterday, 15 children have been attending classes outdoors. UNRWA has given the community emergency food parcels, mattresses and blankets, and will be granting cash assistance to cover expenses related to the lost homes. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) handed out tents and kitchen sets to the affected families.

Forced displacement disrupts livelihoods, sharply reduces living standards, and limits access to basic services, such as water, education and health care. In most cases, demolitions affect families and communities that already live close to or below the poverty line.

Fleeing from drought or violence leaves children with a legacy that doesn’t always make them good students, says Kaissa. “They are not used to rules,” he says. “They come to school today, but maybe they don’t come tomorrow.” To prove his point, only the most serious students attended school on the first day of term. It would take the rest of the week for the others to take their place in class.

October 19, 2011 (KAMPALA) – Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni says his country will send teachers to South Sudan as an effort to help the new nation build its human capacity and recover from decades of conflict that have badly affected literacy and the education system. Speaking at the opening of a leaders retreat for his ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) on Monday in the town of Kyanykwanzi, president Museveni said this will aid job creation for his citizens.

The Ghazi High School was established as a “Lycée” in 1926 and from the beginning, had instruction in English. After it was almost completely destroyed by decades of war, USAID began working with the Ministry of Education to rebuild the school.

Construction for the 8,200 square meter three-story school began in 2007 and includes buildings with 72 classrooms, an enclosed link way that connects the classroom blocks, and ramps for wheelchair access. The school was designed and constructed to international seismic safety standards to prevent damage from earthquakes.

USAID created the Kabul Schools Program to support the Ministry of Education’s ambitious plans to expand quality and access to education, and when the program finishes in 2012, the Ministry will have the capacity to serve the educational needs of more than 12,000 boys and girls in greater Kabul City.

"Why are you going to school? Education is useless for a girl." Forty-five-year old Bibi Gul wasn't happy that her young daughter, Nisa, had chosen to attend school. It meant the 9-year-old was busy most of the time doing her homework.

Even when public schools are available, parents often don't want their daughters to walk long distances unaccompanied to reach them. By bringing schools close to home—and, in certain communities, creating classes specifically for girls—CRS ensured that thousands of girls would be able to learn.

Nisa was especially happy when a tin box of storybooks arrived. CRS provides the schools we support with "libraries in a box" so that students can take home books to read. "After this, every day I would bring a storybook and I would read it for my sisters and brothers," remembers Nisa. But her mother still wasn't happy about her studies.