Inclusive education

I. Concept and meaning of Inclusive education

·         Inclusion meaning: The act of including someone or something as part of a group, list, etc.

·         Inclusive education (IE) is a new approach towards educating the children with disability and learning difficulties with that of normal ones within the same roof.

·         Inclusive education means that all students attend and are welcomed by their neighborhood schools in age-appropriate, regular classes and are supported to learn, contribute and participate in all aspects of the life of the school.

·         Inclusive education is about how we develop and design our schools, classrooms, programs and activities so that all students learn and participate together.

II(a). Historical perspective of inclusive school

·         In early times, People with disabilities were considered to pose a social threat and they were killed and used as objects of entertainment. As such, the society had to be protected from PWDs and the converse was also true, the latter had to be protected from society.

·         Philanthropists found it imperative that PWDs should be given custodial care. This led to the period of institutionalism.

·         Special schools began to emerge in the 15^th century, starting with those with sensory impairments.

·         In 1945 the League of Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the field of education, Article 26 of the Declaration proclaims the right of every citizen to an appropriate education regardless of Gender, race, colour, and region.

·         The government of India is constitutionally committed to ensuring the right of every child to basic education. The Government of India has created numerous policies around special education since the country’s independence in 1947.

·         It was not until the late 1950s that categorisation of people with disabilities into separate groups and institutionalisation began to be questioned.

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·         Institutionalisation removed PWDs, this led to the concept of normalisation first developed in Denmark and Sweden.

·          One of the earliest formal initiatives undertaken by the GOI was the Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) scheme of 1974 .The Kothari Commission (1966) which highlighted the importance of educating children with disabilities during the post-independence period .

·         In 1980s the then ministry of Welfare, Govt. of India, realized the crucial need of an institution to monitor and regulate the HRD programmes in the field of disability rehabilitation. Till 1990s, 90% of India’s estimated 40 million children in the age group- four-sixteen years with physical and mental disabilities are being excluded from mainstream education.

·         The National Policy on Education, 1986 (NPE, 1986), and the Programme of Action (1992) stresses the need for integrating children with special needs with other groups.

·         The 1990 World Declaration on education for all: Meeting basic learning need, states that, Basic education should be provided to all children.

·         The Government of India implemented the District Primary Education Project (DPEP) in 1994–95. In late 90s (i.e. in 1997) the philosophy of inclusive education is added in District Primary Education Programme (DPEP).  This programme laid special emphasis on the integration of children with mild to moderate disabilities, in line with world trends, and became one of the GOI‟s largest flagship programmes of the time in terms of funding with 40,000 million rupees (approximately 740 million US dollars).

·         Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) was launched to achieve the goal of Universalization of Elementary Education in 2001, is one such initiative. Three important aspect of UEE are access, enrolment and retention of all children in 6-14 years of age. A zero rejection policy has been adopted under SSA, which ensures that every Child with Special Needs (CWSN), irrespective of the kind, category and degree of disability, is provided meaningful and quality education.

·         National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 has laid down a clear context of inclusive education. In 2005, the Ministry of Human Resource Development implemented a National Action Plan for the inclusion in education of children and youth with disabilities. Furthermore, IEDC was revised and named „Inclusive Education of the Disabled at the Secondary Stage‟ (IEDSS) in 2009-10 to provide assistance for the inclusive education of the disabled children at 9th and 10th classes. This scheme now subsumed under Rashtriya Madhyamik ShikshaAbhiyan (RMSA) from 2013. It is important to integrate these children into regular schools to help them socialise and build their confidence.