Building on the provisions of the Art.24 UNCRPD (2008), this article aims at mapping the access to inclusive education for children with disabilities in Romania. Using a human rights based approach, which defines the right to education for children with disabilities as the right to inclusive education (UNESCO, 2005; UNHCHR, 2013), the research tried to identify the effectiveness of the right to inclusive education for children with disabilities from three different angles of research: the Romanian legal framework and public policy, the level of satisfaction of the parents of children with disabilities in terms of child oriented services and inclusiveness and the preparedness of the school teachers in terms of applying inclusive education methods (Turza & Turza, 2013). Desk review on legislation and public policies, online questionnaires and qualitative semi-structured interviews with parents and school teachers were conducted. 921 parents and 356 school teachers from 21 Romanian cities participated in the online research and 31 interviews were conducted for the qualitative part of the research. The results of the research sow that the situation of children with disabilities in Romania is precarious, especially in terms of education. The legal framework is obsolete and proves a conceptual misunderstanding of the notion of inclusive education (Turza & Dumitran, 2014). Abuse and discrimination is rife, with pervasive lack of accessibility and a system of social support based on the medical model of disability. In 2013, 70,647 children with disabilities lived in Romania. 31,132 children were not enrolled in any type of education, while 11,742 continues to be segregated in “special schools for children with handicap”, or do not receive any education, remaining isolated at home or in institutions. Schools fail to provide even basic educational services, adapted to the specific needs of different disabilities and in the vast majority, teachers pointed out the absence of the specialty trainings on inclusive education methods, the absence of didactic adapted materials and the absence of an adapted infrastructure and curriculum.

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