Since the 2010 round of censuses, all Latin American countries have asked about disability. Likewise, 11 countries have included questions on this matter in household surveys and 7 countries in the region have administrative records of the population that has a disability certificate or card.
However, great difficulties still persist when it comes to generating statistical information that can be compared between the different countries of the region and that allows monitoring of the exercise of the rights of persons with disabilities.
These difficulties are mainly due to the fact that the measurement of disability varies depending on how it is defined, for example, the question aimed at measuring disability is different if it is understood from an individual or medical perspective (do you have a disability?) rather than if it is defined from a structural and social perspective (do you have difficulty doing any of the following activities?). Similarly, there may also be differences in the way disability is measured depending on the measurement instrument chosen (censuses, household surveys, administrative records), the aspects of disability to be measured (for example, type of disability) and the characteristics of the available sources of information. These difficulties are observed to a greater extent in information sources such as administrative records where the exploitation of information for statistical purposes is still incipient in the countries of the region.
Recommendations for Latin America
Within the framework of ECLAC’s technical assistance to the Buenos Aires Group, the regional group of the Washington Group on disability statisticsthis report presents a proposal for measuring disability for administrative records in education for the initial, primary, secondary, tertiary and higher levels to be applied in Latin American countries. The developed proposal includes a set of questions according to the type of administrative record and adaptations for each educational level. In addition, it contemplates recommendations and instructions aimed at the people in charge of applying the questions, in order to improve the collection of the information obtained and offer a comparability framework for the collected data.
The purpose of the proposal is, based on the use of the same set of questions to be included in the educational administrative records, to contribute to generating comparable information between countries and for each country on the student population with disabilities. The developed proposal includes a set of questions according to the type of administrative record and adaptations for each educational level. In addition, it contemplates recommendations and instructions aimed at the people in charge of applying the questions, in such a way as to improve the collection of the information obtained and offer a comparability framework of the data collected between the different countries.
The work carried out seeks to advance towards a framework of comparability and harmonization of statistical information on students with disabilities among the countries of Latin America. Having up-to-date and comparable information on the student population with disabilities is essential for the development of educational policies and the design of common strategies for full educational inclusion and improving the educational quality of children and adolescents in the region. It is expected that this work not only contributes to the improvement of the statistics of the population with disabilities in the educational context, but also serves as an experience to be replicated in administrative records of other sectors such as health and work, among others. .
