This book is about how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) can help school systems in developing countries become more inclusive. It shares experience of developing tools and approaches that have improved education for the most excluded children in society.

While the principles of inclusive education have been broadly accepted by many since the international Salamanca Statement of 19941 on special needs education, efforts to make these a reality have been patchy. The need for progress on inclusive education is becoming increasingly urgent in the context of efforts to achieve international targets such as the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal primary education by 2015, and the goal of Education for All (EFA) by 2015. For such commitments to be fulfilled by governments, donors and others involved with education, strategies must be found to ensure that children viewed as ‘hardest to reach’ – the most socially and economically marginalised – can access good-quality education. This requires the principles of inclusive education to be put into practice on a much wider scale, including in resource-poor or crisis-affected settings.