On Tuesday October 11^th Mr. Steven Cowan and Mrs. Elaine M. Cowan shared research findings from their investigations about special education in India and Republic of Armenia. The audience at University of Nizwa were drawn from students and professionals who work in the fields of international development, child welfare and development and inclusive education.

Mrs. Elaine M. Cowan, senior lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, delivered a presentation on her consultancy work in May 2011 entitled A pilot evaluation of inclusive education in the Republic of Armenia. Armenia is developing an inclusive education system where children with special educational needs who previously attended separate schools (such as for learning difficulties or physical disabilities) are being integrated into the regular schools with all other children. Her work in Armenia was to develop a toolkit of methods to be used to evaluate progress toward inclusion in schools, test out these methods with a team of Armenian educationists in one school and then review and improve the methods so they could be used in other schools in the future.

Her presentation began by reviewing UN declarations and conventions which have resulted in the move toward inclusive education internationally from a social justice viewpoint and some of the recent relevant research literature on studying inclusion in schools. She described the tools developed and used by her team. These focussed particularly on using classroom observation paired with teacher interviews to understand the links between a teacher’s knowledge, attitudes on inclusion and actual classroom teaching methods. The team also interviewed children and parents on their attitudes toward inclusion individually and in focus groups. The second part of her presentation used photographs taken during her team’s 4 days in the school to illustrate their main findings on the school’s physical fabric, resources, support for inclusion as well as the effectiveness of learning and teaching strategies observed. At the end of the presentation she summed up some of the group’s findings, highlighting the successes in inclusion and areas for future improvement in the school.

Dr. Steven Cowan, senior lecturer in the Institute of Education, University of London, spoke of how he and his research colleague, Pranati Gandotra, working through the NGO Prayas Social and Welfare Society, had conducted their investigations and information gathering over the past year.

He pointed out that his topic about street and working children in India was relevant in Oman due to the historical links between the two countries, their geographical closeness and the countless ties arising from the large resident working population who come from India to live and work in Oman. Cowan said that “when ties are so close the concerns of one country become those of the other”.

Recent government initiatives in welfare, health and education have seen Oman steadily rise up the international league tables for social welfare and the rights of children. In Oman child labour has been pushed back to the margins, universal schooling is an accomplished fact and life opportunities measured by indices such as male/female ratios and longevity indicate gradually rising real living standards and quality of life. Cowan stated that regrettably the opposite was true in many rural and urban areas within India. In many places the Government has lost the ability to count the numbers of migrant families dwelling in zhuggies (temporary, self-made dwellings alongside the roads) in urban centres as the tide from countryside to city becomes almost like a human tsunami. Often at the bottom of this pile of human displacement and misery are the children. Steven Cowan spoke about how he and his research colleague, Pranati Gandotra, managed to undertake the field work research, especially given the fact that roadside communities were often suspicious of outsiders, especially anyone from a government agency, let alone from another culture and continent. “While undertaking the research with children and visiting their homes we would prepare for our visit by making sure that both the children and their relatives knew to expect us”. He spoke of how it was much more difficult to visit children at their places of work as employers were suspicious. “Although virtually everyone is aware of legal restrictions on employing children as labour, there is an almost universal disregard for the legislation, most especially through the employment of school-age children as domestic workers for the commercial and professional middle class”.

The main section of Steven Cowan’s talk consisted of images of places where the children lived and images of the working children themselves. In one case described how a mother was keen to get her 13 year-old daughter married off as quickly as possible because she thought she would then be secure. In the detailed testimony produced by the girl it became clear that she was resigned to her fate and expressed a complete lack of interest in the future or any sense of ambition or aspirations. Cowan showed the audience images of children working either in domestic labour or in more public places such as a young boy who ran his own egg and omelette selling business from a small cart which he stood by the street in a busy part of the city of Faridabad. The point Cowan was highlighting was that child labour was not necessarily something that was hidden away from public view. He also showed images of children doing various forms of domestic-based piece-working connected to locally-based light manufacturing. He described how one small girl spent so many hours each day performing repetitive tasks that she sometimes felt her mind becoming disembodied from her arms and hands as she worked.

The session ended with a lively discussion about whether child labour should be completely banned and what the immediate consequences would be for child workers and their families.