Indicator 3(A): Do people with mental disabilities get access to mainstream education? Is it inclusive and responsive to their individual needs?
Conclusion:
No, people with mental disabilities are not provided with a real opportunity to participate in an inclusive education at all levels of the Hungarian education system.
Explanation:
According to the Fundamental Law of Hungary, the state ensures the right to education by ‘extending and generalising public education’.[76] Primary education is compulsory for all children, without exception.
The level of educational attainment of people with mental disabilities is remarkably lower than that of the general population. According to statistical data from 2011, half of people with intellectual disabilities have not finished primary school.[77] Exclusion and isolation continues in the course of secondary and higher education too.[78] Only 1.8% of people with intellectual disabilities were reported to have finished secondary school, and just 0.7% graduated from college or university.[79] Children with intellectual disabilities are frequently placed in segregated schools, a situation which caused the CRPD Committee to express concern.[80] The provision of reasonable accommodations to children with mental disabilities is not compulsory, resulting in the exclusion of many from mainstream educational provision.
[76] Section XI (2) of the Fundamental Law of Hungary.
[77] This figure drops to 35% in the case of autism to 17% when it comes to people with mental health issues.
[78] Hungarian Disability Caucus, Disability Rights or Disabling Rights? CRPD Alternative Report, August 2010, 155, 158-159.
[79] 6.7% of people with intellectual disabilities have received some kind of vocational training. Hungarian Central Statistical Office, Evaluation of the 2011 Census – People with disabilities, table 1,5, 16.
[80] Committee on the Rights of People with Disabilities, Concluding Observations, Hungary, CRPD/C/HUN/CO/1, 29 September 2012, paras 39-40.