Special education in China

Special education in China provides education for disabled students.

Demographics

According to the 2006 census, 82.96 million disabled people live in China, an estimated 6.34% of the overall population. Educational opportunities for disabled Chinese are lacking, causing elevated poverty and poor living conditions .

As the chart indicates approximately 60%-70% of disabled children are educated, contrasted with close to 100% for the able-bodied. Only 25% of disabled children enroll in high schools or higher educational institutions.^[1]

Services

Few educational institutions serve special needs students. As of 2008, 1640 institutions specifically serve disabled people, with forty-six thousand teaching staff spread across those institutions.

Employment

An issue directly related to education is the employment rate. Some researchers report that more than 10% of the disabled people in China lack adequate food and clothing, about 40% have very little income and only 25% work on a full-time basis. Among those who are employed, 96.6% are manual workers. Employment status has a direct correlation with income. Families without a disabled person have an average 23.26% higher family income than families with at least one disabled person

References