INCLUSIVE
EDUCATION
(ROLE
OF COMMUNITY)
Mrs.
Aseem Mohan (Assistant Professor, CCE, Noida)
Inclusion is an educational approach and philosophy that provides all students with community membership and greater opportunities for academic and social achievement. Inclusion is about making sure that each and every student feels welcome and that their unique needs and learning styles are attended to and valued.
Inclusion has two sub-types: the first is sometimes called regular inclusion or partial inclusion, and the other is full inclusion.
"Inclusive
practice" is not always inclusive but is a form of integration.
For example, students with special needs are educated in regular
classes for nearly all of the day, or at least for more than half of
the day. Whenever possible, the students receive any additional help
or special instruction in the general classroom, and the student is
treated like a full member of the class. However, most specialized
services are provided outside a regular classroom, particularly if
these services require special equipment or might be disruptive to
the rest of the class (such as speech therapy), and students are
pulled out of the regular classroom for these services. In this case,
the student occasionally leaves the regular classroom to attend
smaller, more intensive instructional sessions in a resource room, or
to receive other related services, such as speech and language
therapy, occupational and/or physical therapy, and social work This
approach can be very similar to many mainstreaming practices, and may
differ in little more than the educational ideals behind it.
In the "full
inclusion" setting, the students with special needs are always
educated alongside students without special needs, as the first and
desired option while maintaining appropriate supports and services.
Some educators say this might be more effective for the students with
special needs. At the extreme, full inclusion is the integration of
all students, even those that require the most substantial
educational and behavioral supports and services to be successful in
regular classes and the elimination of special, segregated special
education classes. Special education is considered a service, not a
place and those services are integrated into the daily routines and
classroom structure, environment, curriculum and strategies and
brought to the student, instead of removing the student to meet his
or her individual needs. However, this approach to full inclusion is
somewhat controversial, and it is not widely understood or applied to
date. Much more commonly, local educational agencies provide a
variety of settings, from special classrooms to mainstreaming to
inclusion, and assign students to the system that seems most likely
to help the student achieve his or her individual educational goals.
Students with mild or moderate disabilities, as well as disabilities
that do not affect academic achievement, such as using wheelchair,
are most likely to be fully included. However, students with all
types of disabilities from all the different disability categories
have been successfully included in general education classes, working
and achieving their individual educational goals in regular school
environments and activities.
Inclusive Education
means that schools should accommodate all children regardless of
their physical, intellectual, social, emotional and linguistic or
other conditions. This should include disabled and gifted children,
street and working children, children from remote population,
children from linguistic, ethnic or cultural minorities and children
from other disadvantage or marginalized areas or groups.
Role of Community
Inclusive Education
starts with the community. The community must believe in the
Inclusive Education philosophy. While the educators may be willing to
provide inclusive education, the general public must also view it as
their responsibility. It must become a norm of society.
Here we first
discuss objectives & then the role of community in inclusive
education. The main objectives of inclusive education program are:-
- To ensure that no child is denied admission in mainstream education.
- To ensure that every child would have the right to access an aanganwadi and school and no child would be turned back on the ground of disability.
- To ensure that mainstream and specialist training institutions serving persons with disabilities, in the government or in the non government sector, facilitate the growth of a cadre of teachers trained to work within the principles of inclusion.
- To facilitate access of girls with disabilities and disabled students from rural and remote areas to government hostels.
- To provide for home based learning for persons with severe, multiple and intellectual disability.
- To promote distance education for those who require an individualized pace of learning.
- To emphasize job-training and job oriented vocational training, and
- To promote an understanding of the paradigm shift from charity to development through a massive awareness, motivation and sensitization campaign.
1. Role of family
-
The parents/ family are the true source of
knowing needs, strengths and limitations of their children with mild
or severe disabilities.
-
Parents/family should be fully aware of rights of their child to have
an inclusive education.
- Parents/ family
should encourage the child to participate in activities where he can
meet children of different abilities.
- Children should be
encouraged by them to develop friendship with classmates &
other neighborhood children.
- Parents/family can
discuss their goals, expectations and preferences for a child with
their teacher, therapists etc., before going to school and deciding
upon the education plan for them.
- Parent/family can
take help to bring in an expert to share information about benefits
of inclusive education.
2. Role of school
Special Educational Need
There is special
need in each school; they have some seats of these kinds of students
and psychologists for segregation & grouped process of
non-disabled and disabled students. Besides this, doctors, therapists
and special training with our teaching training courses are required.
School should be full of these services and resources.
Teachers use a
number of techniques to help in building classroom:
- Using game designed to build community.
- Involving students in solving problems.
- Sharing songs and books that teach community.
- Openly dealing with individual difference by discussion.
- Assigning classroom jobs that build community.
- Teaching students to look for ways to help each other.
- Utilizing physical therapy equipment such as standing frames so students who typically use wheelchairs can stand when the other students are standing and more actively participate in activities.
- Encouraging students to take the role of teacher and deliver instruction (e.g. read a portion of a book to a student with severe disabilities)
Focusing on the
Strength of a student with special needs.
Selection of
students for inclusion in classroom/school Educators generally
say that some students with special needs are not good candidates for
inclusion. Selection demands fundamental requirements. First, being
included requires that the student is able to attend school. School
has a duty to provide a safe environment to all students and staff.
Inclusion needs to be appropriate to the child’s unique needs. The
students that are most commonly included are those with physical
disabilities that have no or little effect on their academic work.
Educationists say that regular inclusion but not full inclusion is a
reasonable approach for significant majority of students with special
needs. He also says that some students, notably those with severe
autism spectrum disorders or mental retardation as a well as many who
are deaf or have multiple disabilities.
3. Inclusive
Education and Equity
If the right to
education for all is to become a reality, we must ensure that all
learners have access to quality education that meets basic learning
needs and enriches lives. Still, today, millions of children, youth
and adults continue to experience exclusion within and from education
around the world. The UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in
Education (1960) and other international human rights treaties
prohibit any exclusion from or limitation to educational
opportunities on the bases of socially ascribed or perceived
differences, such as sex, ethnic origin, language, religion,
nationality, social origin, economic condition, ability, etc.
Education is not simply about making schools available for those who
are already able to access them. It is about being proactive in
identifying the barriers and obstacles learners encounter in
attempting to access opportunities for quality education, as well as
in removing those barriers and obstacles that lead to exclusion.
UNESCO works with
governments and partners to address exclusion from and inequality in
educational opportunities.
The ministry for human resource development is currently
in the process of developing a comprehensive action plan on the
inclusion in education of children and youth with disabilities. The
different departments at the central level are in the process of
developing their work plans. Roles and responsibilities for
implementing agencies and their partners, the roles of NGOs, parents
groups are also being drafted.
CONCLUSION
Inclusive education
reflects values, ethos and culture of a state education system
committed to enhancing equitable educational opportunities and
improved outcomes for all students, recognizing roles education can
play in redressing social disadvantage and social injustice.
Inclusive education
requires that school is supportive and engaging places for all
students, teachers and members of school community. It is about
building communities that value, celebrate and respond positively to
diversity. It is supported by collaborative relationship with
families’ communities and governments. It is about shaping the
society in which we live and type of society to which we aspire.
Children, who
learn together, learn to live together!