Inclusive Education - How Do We Go About It In Schools

“Inclusion begins with the belief in what is Possible and not what is Impossible”

This is the answer to all those who say that inclusive education is impossible in the Indian education system.

Research shows that one of the reasons inclusion s difficult to implement in the Indian education system is because a lot of confusion stems from the fact that inclusion means different things to different people. Therefore we clearly need to understand what inclusion is in order to be able to implement it effectively.

The essential component of inclusive education is the changing or modifying  of the education system to accommodate the different learning styles and needs of students. Please note that the focus is on changing the system and not the child. For most people inclusion means accepting the child into the school system and then letting him/ her find their own way. Many schools say that they practice inclusive education. By that they mean they accept children with special needs. That is the first step in the inclusive process. The next step is to offer the child support in the form of remedial education, a modified curriculum and concessions. It is at this stage that the process begins to break down. Very few schools are willing to pursue the process that goes with hiring a special educator or adopting concessions provided by the government. The lack of clear guidelines from the government in hiring teachers adds to the reluctance of this process.

Today schools are under pressure to accept children with special needs (CWSN). That is because the law says that no one can turn away any child on the basis of disability. Most schools admit that if they do not know a child has a disability they do not turn the child away after it is discovered. But if they know up front that the child has any kind of special needs, they immediately refer the child to a special school. The more severe the need the less chance the child has for gaining admission into a regular school.

Therefore what needs to be done? To bring inclusive education into schools, we cannot wait for children with special needs to be admitted. All schools should begin to work towards being inclusive in nature from the very start.

1.    Develop an inclusive attitude-  An inclusive attitude is an attitude where children with different learning needs are not just accepted but welcomed. Principals, teachers, non teaching staff, students parents should all come to gather and take pride in a school system where differences are celebrated. Parents of CWSN should feel that they are a part of this school and children with special needs should feel that they are productive members of the school

2.    Provide training to the staff- Teachers should clearly understand what is expected of them in order to include children.  Knowledge of disability is important but it is more important to give the staff hands on training on teaching CWSN, handling behavioural issues as well as implementing accommodations. There are specific strategies to make classrooms more inclusive in nature. Staff and principals should collaborate to implement these inclusive strategies.

Provide support- A very important factor in making  a school inclusive is providing the regular teachers with support. This means employing special educators as part of the regular school system in anticipation of having CWSN. Research has shown that at least 10% of the class has  learning disability. In addition if we take into account second language difficulty intellectual disability and autism we know that most schools will have CWSN in them. Today the trend is towards waiting for schools to have a particular quota of CWSN and then fighting for a special educator. The opposite has to happen. As a norm the school should have 3 special educators one for the primary, one for the upper primary and one for the secondary. Thus schools are already prepared and do not have to turn away students.

Schools that have an environment of inclusion are paving the way for a more inclusive society. Today’s students are tomorrow’s doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers and bus drivers. If we sensitize them today in schools we are creating a brighter future for all children.

Giselle Lobo

Special Educator 

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION – CHALLENGES IN THE INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION – CHALLENGES IN THE INDIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM

In 1994 India became one of the 92 countries to sign the Salamanca Agreement . One of the provisions of this agreement specifically said that  “those with special educational needs must have access to regular schools which should accommodate them within a child centered pedagogy capable of meeting these needs” thus emphasizing the right of children to inclusive education. This signing of the agreement demonstrated that India was willing to make the move from integration to inclusion.

India is a country where inclusive education is an emerging model and special schools are the largest among the educational facilities for CWSN.  ( Narayan et al 2005). India’s efforts at integrating children with special needs date back to the early fifties (1954) when the Kothari Commission had recommended that children with special needs be educated along with typical children. The National Policy of Education 1968 clearly stated that “children with physical and mental handicaps” should study in regular schools. One of the earliest formal initiatives undertaken by the Indian Government was the Integrated Education for Disabled Children ( IEDC) scheme of 1974. The objectives of this scheme included the retention of children with disabilities in the regular system, preschool training for children with disabilities and 100% financial assistance to schools to over the expense associated with educating the children.  (Das and Sharma Supprt for learning 2015)

In the National Policy of Education of 1981 and subsequent policies of education the commitment to integrated education was reiterated. At this point the focus is on integrated rather than inclusive education. The National policy on Education (1986) specifically recommended a goal “to integrate the handicapped with the general community at all levels as equal partners to prepare them for normal growth and to enable them to face life with courage and confidence”

The Project for Integrated Education of the Disabled (PIED) 1987 saw great success in the area of integrated education. This is because of the adoption of the Composite Area Approach that converted all regular schools within a specified area, referred to as a block, into integrated schools. These schools had to share resources such as specialized equipment, instructional materials and special education teachers. One key aspect of the project was the teacher training component. The teacher training program, available to teachers in each selected block, followed a three-level training approach:

1. a five day orientation course for all the teachers in the regular schools,
2. a six-week intensive training course for 10 percent of the teachers, and

a one-year multi-category training program for eight to ten regular school teachers think about this in the context of human resource develop

In India, "integrated education" has been provided mainly to students with mild disabilities who are considered "easy" to include into regular school programs. Students with severe disabilities, in a majority of cases, do not attend a school, or in rare cases, attend a special school. Sharma and Deppler 2005 Disability quarterly journal

In 1994 the government launched yet another project aimed at integrating children with disabilities into the mainstream.  This was the DPEP (District Primary Education Program). This program laid special emphasis on the integration of children with mild to moderate disabilities in the primary section. In addition The program had a number of objectives including 1) detection of disabilities 2) in service teacher training 3) provision for resources, 4) provision of educational aids and appliances 5) removal of architectural barriers Mangal Educating Exceptional Children

It is interesting to note that both the PIED and the DPEP laid stress on the training of teachers thus underscoring the fact that for inclusion to succeed it is the general educator which needs to be trained.

 All of these efforts got a boost by a shot in the arm when the Government of India passed The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act in 1995. This law required that all states and Union Territories must ensure that persons with disabilities have access to the same educational opportunities and basic human rights as their peers without disabilities. The Act further emphasized that, whenever possible, students with disabilities should be educated in regular school settings.

There have been other policy initiatives by the government of India to further the cause of inclusive education such as Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in 2001. The policy of SSA which talked about education had a zero policy for admission of all children. There was a clear statement that no child could be refused admission into a school due to disability. The National Action Plan for the Inclusion of Children and Youth with Disabilities (2005) MHRD was another policy supporting inclusive education. In 2009 the IEDC was revised and renamed the Inclusive Education of the Disabled at the Secondary Stage (IEDSS) Das and Sharma

2009 also saw the passage of the Right To Education Act (RTE) which included a clause supporting inclusive education.

However, even though support for inclusive education in India looks promising in policy, it cannot be overemphasized that the incongruity between policy and practice remains an unfathomable challenge. The mere existence of ambitious goals in policy has not ensured their expression such as to reach anywhere near the desired results (Sharma and Madan 2013).

The number of reasons that inclusive education has failed to be implemented on a large scale are numerous.

The first reason for this is lack of clarity as to what inclusion truly is. There is very little empirical research about inclusion in India and researchers themselves are unclear as to what inclusion entails. This lack of clarity is reflected in government schemes as well. Most of the schemes passed (till 2000)talk about integration of the CWSN. From 2005 onwards the terms used is inclusion but there is no specific explanation as to the reason for difference in terminology. Nor has there been any explanation as to how inclusion will be implemented differently from integration.

Secondly it is clear from the policies of the government that the problem is still perceived as being the child. The policies mention financial assistance being given to the child but nowhere is money being given to modify the environments.  Most government schemes do not have a clear picture as to what is entailed in making a school inclusive and therefore do not allocate funds accordingly.

Thirdly government policy is unclear as to whether it supports segregated or inclusive education. E.g. The PWD (1995) talks about supporting the integration of students with disabilities as well as promoting  the growth of special schools.  ( Singal (2005), Das &Sharma ( 2005) Johannson (2014)). Government policy also foall short when it comes to funding for any of these programs. Many schemes promise funding but the actual release of the funds is long and cumbersome process which most principals choose to avoid. In many cases funds promised to schools are simply not released making other mainstream schools vary of starting any programs of inclusion. 

There also seems to be a lack of a comprehensive view of how inclusive education will be implemented. E.g. The RTE has one sentence which talks about not refusing CWSN admission in schools but does not say that schools have to mandatorily have a special educator. Thus CWSN sometimes get admission but do nothing in the class. In other cases guidelines for accommodations and concessions are only mentioned at the secondary level therefore most schools persist in forcing CWSN to write papers or will not provide readers upto Std. 9. There is no plan to train principals of special schools so that they will tie up to regular schools in their areas to ensure that more CWSN attend schools.

The last reason that inclusive education has failed to gain a firm footing in schools is due to the fact it is seen as the responsibility of the special educator. Inclusive education means that CWSN are educated primarily in the general classroom but yet there has been no concrete move to implement this concept at the pre service training level. Till today inclusive education is an optional subject at the B.Ed level. In some in service training  programs it is taught at the theoretical level and the  training to in service teachers focuses more on characteristics of disabilities rather than on developing an inclusive attitude or inclusive teaching strategies.

CWSN Children with Special Needs 

The place of the Resource Room In Inclusive Education

The Resource Room – It’s Place in Inclusive Education

Much has been written about inclusive education and the best way to implement it in schools in India.

While the concept is firmly established in the States, many other Western countries and India continue to struggle with the best ways in which to implement it in their school system.

Most countries are comfortable in including those children who will benefit from the prevailing academic curriculum and are willing to make slight modifications in content. They also make huge modifications in terms of adapting teaching strategies as well as the evaluation procedures. So children with learning disabilities (dyslexia, dysgraphia) and slow learners benefit immensely from this system.

But inclusion means that ALL children will be educated by ALL teachers in ALL schools so we have a duty to include those children whose learning needs will be different enough to warrant more than slight adaptations in the curriculum.  In this context I am talking about children with moderate to severe intellectual disability (mental retardation) children with severe autism. These children are usually in special schools since there is no place for them in the current school system.

It is for these children specially that the resource room becomes an invaluable construct in the road to inclusion.

The value of resource room can be seen in many forms.

1.     Any child can be a student of the school. Having a resource room allows a school to admit children with moderate to severe cognitive disabilities. In other words these are the children who typically go to special schools because they cannot “COPE” with the regular school. Instead of saying that we cannot admit  children with severe disabilities, the school can welcome them since the resource room allows for a different program where the needs of  these students will be met, By giving them a separate classroom any child can learn at his pace in the resource room and gain all the benefits of inclusion which include interacting with his peers while participating in the the daily rhythm of life  of his school community.

2.     A seperate curriculum- When it comes to curriculum modification King-Sears (2001) identified four types of curriculum modification. The resource room allows for the development of a parallel or overlapping curriculum so that children with more severe learning difficulties will be part of the school. Thus children with severe learning difficulties need not be banned from a regular school environment. The table below  explains the different types of modifications that a school will have to make in order to admit children with a range of learning abilites.

Level	Content/Knowledge	Conceptual Difficulty	Intended goals	Methods of instruction
Accommodation	Same as general education curriculum	Same as general curriculum	Same or modified	Modified
Adaptation	Same as general curriculum	Slightly modified	Modified	Modified
Parallel	Same as general curriculum	Significantly modified	Modified	Modified
Overlapping	Different	Different Significantly	Modified	Different

3.     Development of the IEP (Individualized Education Program). A key component of any resource room is the development of the IEP. Based on the type of curriculum existing in the resource room, each student will have an IEP. The aim of this is to provide each child with a set of functional goals which accomplish the dual purpose of learning skills which allow for independence as well as those which allow for interaction with students in the general stream

4.     Highly individualized instructional strategies. The existence of an IEP naturally means that many teaching strategies will be highly individualized and very activity based. While this is extremely difficulty in the general classroom it is munch more feasible in the resource room where the numbers of children are less. One can also change the organization of the classroom to allow for different activities which is very difficult in the general classroom

5.      Allowance for participation in the general school routine. Given our current educational system where there is still an overly academic focus in the classroom and also overcrowding it becomes difficult for children with intellectual disability (ID) and autism to spend the entire day in the general classroom The resource room allows students who face these difficulties to participate in the general classroom activities  at times which are beneficial to them e.g. non academic classes, or assembly while still learning skills which are necessary to them in the resource room.

An aid to sensitization and disability awareness. The RR also has the advantage of being a place where mainstream students can come and interact with the students with special needs in small groups. They get a chance to be with their students of the resource room and participate in activities and learn first hand that children with disabilities are capable of learning. It is an opportunity for them to ask question about the students of the resource room and clarify myths and misconceptions that exist about disabilities. The awareness of disability is not just limited to the students of the school. The parents of the general school, the teachers and the non teaching staff are all exposed to the world of