A Capability Approach to Participation In the Learning Process for Children with Disabilities In Afghanistan and Pakistan: A Cluster Control Randomized Trial

Background and Purpose: Compared to children without disabilities, children with disabilities, who represent 240 million globally, are more likely to never attend school or drop out early in the process due to barriers like negative attitudes among teachers, parents, and peers, lack of trained teachers, inadequate learning materials, and inaccessible facilities. We conducted a randomized control trial to improve children’s academic and non-academic learning outcomes in primary schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The intervention integrated participatory systems approaches with pedagogical reform. First, NGO facilitators and researchers conducted community-based system dynamics through group model-building workshops with children, parents, teachers, and school committees over four rounds (2018–2024). Stakeholders collaboratively defined inclusion, identified drivers, mapped causal pathways, and generated and prioritized context-specific “action ideas” using structured decision tools, with children’s input foregrounded to reduce power imbalances. Each school developed and implemented tailored action plans with NGO support. Second, teachers received a one-week training in project-based and child-centered pedagogy using a culturally adapted toolkit, which they applied throughout the academic year. This training emphasized formative assessment, inclusive classroom practices, and active learning strategies, supporting a shift from didactic instruction to participatory, student-centered approaches designed to accommodate diverse learning needs. This study examines the impact of this intervention on learning outcomes in the subsample of children with disabilities in primary rural schools of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Methods: 203 schools were randomly allocated to intervention (n=96) or control (n=107), stratified by province. Two-level random-intercepts linear mixed-effects models estimated wave × intervention interaction effects on academic and psychosocial outcomes, with repeated observations nested within students nested within schools. Adjusted models controlled for student-level covariates; z-scored outcomes yielded standardized effect sizes relative to the baseline control standard deviation. Analyses were stratified by sex and country to assess subgroup heterogeneity.

Results: The intervention significantly improved life skills, self-efficacy, and reading literacy for children with disabilities, after adjusting for sex, grade, assets, livestock, and country at both follow-ups 1 and 2. It also improved resilience at follow-up 2. Girls with disabilities in intervention schools showed significantly greater improvement in life skills and reading literacy at follow-ups 1 and 2 and in self-efficacy at follow-up 1 compared to girls with disabilities in control schools. Boys with disabilities only showed greater improvement in life skills at follow-up 2 compared to boys with disabilities in control schools.

Conclusions and Implications: Our intervention is the first to show that social, emotional, and pedagogical participatory school interventions can improve the inclusion of children with disabilities and their learning outcomes in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan, contributing to a growing literature showing the effectiveness of social and emotional school interventions in conflict and crisis settings. Children with disabilities can achieve meaningful learning gains when they are not only granted access to schooling but also supported to participate in inclusive and participatory learning processes. Sustained school participation is critical: children with disabilities learn when they remain engaged over time. This points to the need for policies to focus on duration, quality, and continuity of education in LMICs.