INTRODUCTION
The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act (2001) deliver
a strengthened right to a mainstream education for children with special
educational needs. The Act has amended the Education Act (1996) and transformed
the statutory framework for inclusion into a positive endorsement of inclusion.
The Act seeks to enable more pupils who have special educational needs to be
included successfully within mainstream education.
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Inclusive education is more than mainstreaming.
Mainstreaming implies that a student from a separate special education class
visits the regular classroom for specific, usually non-academic, subjects.
Inclusion is an educational process by which all students, including those with
disabilities, are educated together for all, or at least most, of the school
day.
Inclusion is seen as a process of addressing and responding
to the diversity of needs of all learners through increasing participation in
learning, cultures and communities, and reducing exclusion within and from
education. It involves changes and modifications in content, approaches,
structures and strategies, with a common vision which covers all children of
the appropriate age range and a conviction that it is the responsibility of the
regular system to educate all children.
INCLUSION IN EDUCATION IS A HUMAN
RIGHT
UNESCO
views inclusion as “a dynamic approach of responding positively to pupil
diversity and of seeing individual differences not as problems, but as
opportunities for enriching learning.” Therefore, the move towards inclusion is
not simply a technical or organisational change but also a movement with a
clear philosophy. In order for inclusion to be implemented effectively, countries
need to define a set of inclusive principles together with practical ideas to
guide the transition towards policies addressing inclusion in education.
A
rights-based approach to education is founded upon three principles:
•
Access
to free and compulsory education
•
Equality,
inclusion and non-discrimination
•
The
right to quality education, content and processes
PRINCIPLES OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
·
Inclusion
is a process by which schools, local education authorities and others develop
their cultures, policies and practices to include pupils.
·
With
the right training, strategies and support nearly all children with special
educational needs can be successfully included in mainstream education.
·
An
inclusive education service offers excellence and choice and incorporates the
views of parents and children.
·
The
interests of all pupils must be safeguarded.
·
Schools,
local education authorities and others should actively seek to remove barriers
to learning and participation.
·
All
children should have access to an appropriate education that affords them the opportunity
to achieve their personal potential.
The Salamanca
Statement, adopted by UNESCO in July 1994, was adopted by 92 governments
and 25 non-government organisations. The rules of the statement
are discussed below,
§ Every
child has a fundamental right to education and must be given the opportunity to
achieve and maintain acceptable levels of learning.
§ Every
child has unique characteristics, interests, abilities and learning needs.
§ Education
systems should be designed and educational programmes implemented to take into
account the wide diversity of these characteristics and needs.
§ Those
with special educational needs must have access to mainstream schools, which
should accommodate them with a child-centred pedagogy capable of meeting those
needs.
§ Mainstream
schools with this inclusive orientation are the most effective means of
combating discriminatory attitudes, creating welcoming communities, building an
inclusive society and achieving education for all. Moreover, they provide an
effective education for the majority of children (without special needs) and
improving the efficiency and ultimately the cost effectiveness of the entire
education system.
ATTITUDES
AND VALUES TOWARDS INCLUSION
Negative
attitudes towards differences and resulting discrimination and prejudice in
society manifests itself as a serious barrier to learning. However, it is a
barrier that can be overcome through the practice of inclusion. There are many
misconceptions surrounding inclusion that often serve as obstacles to adopting
an inclusive approach at the policy level which will be discussed in greater
detail in the last section. Among them are:
•
Inclusion
is costly.
•
Implementing
inclusion needs societal change in attitudes first.
•
Inclusion
is a positive theoretical concept, but is not practical.
•
Inclusion
requires special skills and capacities that are difficult to develop.
•
Inclusion
is the responsibility of the Social Ministry and not of the Ministry of
Education.
•
Inclusion
is a disability-specific issue.
Individuals
involved in a change process may require some pressure to change, but change
will only be effective when they are able and allowed to react to form their
own positions on the change process. In many cases, policymakers, parents,
teachers and other stakeholders in the school need to realise that inclusion is
a process which requires changes at both the level of the education system as
well as the school level
BENEFITS AND POTENTIALS OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION
Inclusive
school programs have the potential to:
- be
less expensive to implement and operate than special education services.
- have
a broader reach than traditional special education in terms of positive
educational and social impacts on children.
- contribute
significantly to the ongoing professional development and job satisfaction
of educators.
- produce
better morale and team effort in the school environment.
ACHIEVEMENT OF INCLUSION
The
curriculum must take into consideration the various needs of pupils to ensure
“access for all”. Some of the achievement strategies of inclusion are:
v Providing a flexible time-frame for
pupils studying particular subjects.
v Families’ visions of a typical life for their children can come true.
v Children develop a positive understanding of themselves and others.
v Friendship develops.
v Children learn important academic skills.
v All children learn by being together.
v Giving greater freedom to teachers
in choosing their working methods.
v Allowing teachers the opportunity of
giving special support in practical subjects (e.g. orientation, mobility) over
and above the periods allotted for more traditional school subjects.
v Allotting time for additional
assistance for classroom-based work emphasizing aspects of pre-vocational training
.
Furthermore,
some practical steps can be taken towards making curricula more inclusive where
the following questions are to be considered:
§ What human values promoting
inclusion are being fostered through the curriculum?
§ Are human rights and children’s
rights part of the curriculum?
§ Do they address the coexistence of
rights with responsibilities, and how are they taught?
§ Is the content of the curriculum
relevant to children’s real lives and future?
§ Does the curriculum take gender,
cultural identity and language background into consideration?
§ Does the curriculum include
environmental education?
§ Are teaching methods child-centered
and interactive?
§ How is feedback gathered/integrated
for curriculum revision?
§ How the curriculum is related to
national assessment systems?
§ To what extent are the education
authorities responsible for monitoring the school in tune with the curriculum
revisions and transactions?
SUPPORTIVE
SERVICES NEEDED FOR INCLUSION
- Consultation - Support personnel provide
assistance to the general educator, enabling him or her to teach all the
students in the inclusive class.
- Parallel teaching - Support personnel—for example,
a special educator, a Title I teacher, a psychologist, or a speech
language therapist—and the classroom teacher rotate among heterogeneous
groups of students in different sections of the general education
classroom.
- Supportive teaching - The classroom teacher takes
the lead role, and support personnel rotate among the students.
- Complementary teaching -The
support person does something to complement the instruction provided by
the classroom teacher (for example, takes notes on a transparency or
paraphrases the teacher's statements).
- Coteaching - Support personnel coteach
alongside the general education teacher.
CONCLUSION
Thus inclusive educational
schooling is the effective schooling which promotes the following points:
§ Direct benefits to children
§ Wider impact on policies, practices, ideas and
beliefs
§ Enhanced children’s participation
§ Reduced discrimination (e.g. gender,
disability, caste, minority status, etc)
§ Strengthened partnerships and improved
collaboration between ministries, at the national and local level of government
and at the communitylevel
§ Development and strengthening of the education
system, technology and pedagogy to include all learners.
REFERENCES
Ø Affleck,
J., Madge., S., Adams, A., & Lowenbraun, S. (1988). Integrated classroom
versus resource model: Academic viability and effectiveness. Exceptional
Children, 54, 339-348 - See more at: http://www.ndss.org/Resources/Education/Implementing-Inclusion/#sthash.s6trl0Xh.dpuf
Ø
Blanco,
Rosa, and Duk, Cynthia, Integrating Special Needs Students: Current and
Prospective Status in Latin America and the Caribbean. In BULLETIN 38, December
1995, The Major Project of Education.(pp. 60-66). Paris: UNESCO.
Ø Lipsky, D. K., & Gartner, A.
(1995). The evaluation of inclusive education programs. NCERI Bulletin, 2 (2).
Ø Staub, D., & Peck, C. A. (1994).
What are the outcomes for nondisabled students? Educational Leadership, 52 (4),
36-40.
Ø Waldron, N. & Cole, C. (2000).
The Indiana Inclusion Study Year One Final Report. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
Institute on Disability & Community. - See more at: http://www.ndss.org/Resources/Education/Implementing Inclusion/#sthash.s6trl0Xh.dpuf
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