ABSTRACT:
Children with disabilities are a minority and they are
not prioritized in the context of educatioal programme in India, although they
are often found in many marginalized groups catered for if non-disabled, for
example, girls, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, and other back ward classes
children. The ideal derived from Gandhian philosophy ‘education for all
irrespective of caste, class, creed, colour, race religion and disabilities’ is
the basic tenet of inclusive education. Inclusive education may be a way of
merging these children‘s needs in order to improve school education in India
elevating negative attitude towards the disabled and marginalized children.
This paper analyses the interpretation and implementation of inclusive
education in India keeping in view of the goal of Fundamental Right to
education of children of 6 to 14 years age (21A) and Fundamental duties of
parents of children of this age group (51A).
INTRODUCTION:
The
new challenge of the country in the 21st century is to set up of a
new flexible system of education that will assimilate the needs of a diverse
range of learners and will lay the foundation of an inclusive society accepting
the diversity of nation. The education
system of a country does not properly function in isolation of its society. Hierarchies
of caste, economic status, gender relations as well as uneven economic
development influence issues related to equity in education. The constitution
of India provides affirmative discriminatory actions to uplift the socially
disadvantaged groups, educationally backward classes, minorities and women
sect. Universalisation of education and equality in educational opportunity
being the motto of educational policies, inclusive environment of education is
a crying need today. Gandhian philosophy of education serves the ideals of
inclusive environment of education and the spirit derived from his ideals
moulded the shape of inclusive education that has now emerged in India.
Inclusive
education is an approach seeking the learning needs of all learners, young
people, youth or adults with a specific focus on those who are vulnerable to marginalization
and exclusion. It implies all learners with or without disabilities being able
to learn together through access to common pre-school provisions, schools and
community educational setting with an appropriate network of support services.
Children in special schools were seen as geographically and socially segregated
from their peers. These students need to be shifted to one where the whole
school was encouraged to become more adaptable and inclusive in its day-to-day
educational practices for all students (‘inclusive education’). Pedagogy in
particular is to be highlighted as the key to meeting all students’ educational
needs by making the curriculum flexible, and so more accessible. Teaching methods which make curriculum
accessible to children with disabilities can also make learning accessible to
all students (Ainscow,
2005; Ainscow, 1991)
OBJECTIVES OF THE PAPER:
1.
To
clarify the concept of inclusive education
2.
To
assess the importance of inclusive education to create equal opportunity in the
main stream of school education
3.
To
recognize the Gandhian views that moulds the concept of inclusive education
4.
To
study the growth and evolution of inclusive education in India
5.
To
recognize drawbacks and suggest remedies for implementing the programme of
inclusive education.
What is Inclusive Education? -UNESCO
sees inclusive education as a process of addressing and responding to 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 appropriate age range and a
conviction that it is the responsibility of the regular system to educate all
children. According to Prof Gary Bunch Ontario, “Inclusive Education refers to
the educational practice base on the philosophical belief that all learners,
those with disabilities and those without, have a right to be educated together
in age appropriate class groups, and that all will benefit from education in
regular classrooms of community schools. Within these settings teachers,
parents and others work collaboratively using appropriate and sufficient
resources to interpret and enact the regular curriculum in a flexible manner in
accordance with the individual abilities and needs of all learners.”
It means the doors to schools,
classrooms and school activities are open to every child and they are afforded
every opportunity to be included with their non-disabled peers. The focus is on giving every child the help he/ she needs to learn.
Inclusive
Education is not:
- Dumping
kids with disabilities into general classrooms without the supports and
services they need to be successful.
- Cutting
back special education services as a “trade off” for being in the general
education classroom.
- Sacrificing
the education of kids without disabilities so kids with disabilities can
be included.
OBJECTIVES
OF THE INCLUSIVE EDUCATION:
1.
To enable children to think of a sense of belongingness and a sense of oneness.
2.
To reach the goal of Universalization of education.
3.
To serve the equal educational opportunities to all students irrespective of
caste, creed, colour, religion and race.
4.
To establish the truth that disabilities or retardation cannot be the barrier
of receiving general education
5.
To enable the children of disabilities to develop appropriate and desirable
social behavior
6.
To set up the national pattern of education to grow national awareness and
nationalism of our country
BASIC
TENETS OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION:
1. Equal
participation of all students
in educational environment
2.
Shared ownership of all students
3.
Necessary supports for all students
4.
Positive & rich learning environment for all students
4.
Expectations for all students
to learn neglecting the barriers of disabilities
INCLUSIVE
EDUCATION IN INDIAN CONTEXT OF DIVERSITY:
India
has the second largest education system in the world, with 200 million children
aged between 6 and 14, around 25 million of whom are out of school (World Bank,
2004). However, bearing in mind that apparently only 35% of children are
registered at birth (UNICEF, 2004), others estimate between 35 to 80 million
out-of-school children (Singal, 2005a).
This inevitable diversity and complexity in a
context of this size must be taken into account. India’s 1.3 billion people
speak 18 different languages (GOI, 2002), and 844 dialects (Singal, 2005a),
worship varied religions, have unique customs, differ in their exposure to
disease and access to types of nutrition which affect their health and
socio-economic status, and also communications which influence their access to
government resources such as education or healthcare.
This diversity is further reflected in
disparities of educational achievement. For example, in Kerala the literacy
rate recorded in the 2001 Census was 90.92%, while in Bihar it was 47.53% (GOI,
2002). As a result, the overall (average) literacy rate for India was 65.38%
which, while a representative figure is a national aggregate and so cannot
reflect the complexity of context (Govinda and Biswal, 2006). However, it is
worth noting that according to the PROBE team (1999) 40% of India’s population lives
in the educationally worst performing states, suggesting that a significant
proportion of Indians are under-served by their education systems. Added to
this issue of averaging out statistics in such a vast country is the fact that
when census data was collected, there were some areas which were cut off by
“disturbances” or “natural calamaties” (GOI, 2002: 11) such as the Kashmiri
conflict, floods or landslides. This shows how despite best intentions, there
may be un-surveyed people whose issues are therefore invisible to
policy-makers, and so they perhaps do not have access to government resources.
This diversity is further reflected in
disparities of educational achievement. For example, in Kerala the literacy
rate recorded in the 2001 Census was 90.92%, while in Bihar it was 47.53% (GOI,
2002). As a result, the overall (average) literacy rate for India was 65.38%
which, while a representative figure is a national aggregate and so cannot
reflect the complexity of context (Govinda and Biswal, 2006). However, it is
worth noting that according to the PROBE team (1999) 40% of India’s population
lives in the educationally worst performing states, suggesting that a
significant proportion of Indians are under-served by their education systems.
INCLUSIVE
EDUCATION POLICY IN INDIA:
Recommendations
to send children with disabilities to mainstream schools were first made in the
Surgent Report in 1944, and again in 1964 by the Kothari Commission (Julka,
2005). Despite this, change has been slow, with segregation in special schools
dominating the scene until recently. Several education acts and promises have
been passed or mooted by central government in India in the past twenty years,
although they do not seem to tackle the roots of attitudinal barriers to inclusion.
For example, in 1993 the Delhi Declaration on Education for All promised to
“…ensure a place for every child in a school or appropriate education programme
according to his or her capabilities” (cited in Mukhopadhyay & Mani, 2002:
96). This issue of ‘capabilities’ is key to the varied interpretations of
‘inclusivity’ of children, the focus on the child’s abilities diverting
attention away from inadequate teaching methods (Singal, 2005b). The 1995 Persons with Disability Act (PDA)
states that disabled children should be educated in integrated settings where
possible.
Implementation
of Inclusive Education: If inclusive education came under one ministry alone,
most probably the MHRD, potentially both conceptualisation and implementation
could be clarified and promoted, while the needs of children with disabilities
could finally be mainstreamed.
The
absence of accountability mechanisms, which results in poor policy
implementation, suggests that in order to ensure implementation of 1995’s
rhetorically positive Persons with Disabilities Act, some kind of legal
enforcement mechanism needs to be created (Alur, 2002),:
GANDHIAN
THOUGHT AS THE SOURCE OF INCLUSIVE EDUCATION:
Mahatma
Gandhi, a great philosopher in the world, synthesized the three important
philosophies- Idealism, Naturalism, and Pragmatism and on the basis of such a
basic ground he propounded his educational thought for the development of
mankind. Gandhian Philosophy and thought on education had brought a new
dimension and fundamental changes for building up of a new social order based
on tolerance, truth and non-violence. After the attainment of freedom in 1947,
the main perspective of our national development was education and education
was given more emphasis because education is the most important means of
national and emotional integration. Education should not only aim at imparting
knowledge but should develop all aspects of students’ personality. It broadens
the outlook, foster the feeling of oneness, nationalism, spirit of sacrifice,
tolerance. Gandhi emphasizes on the humanistic approach to education than mere
accomplishments in scholastic Endeavour. Basic Education undeniably expand the
heart and mind It fosters humanism and cultivate the spirit of total human
welfare. A child receiving craft centric, purposeful, useful, meaningful
education will be truly prepared for the peace and prosperity of the humanity.
Education in course of undergoing Basic Education programmes will ensure total
development of manhood. Gandhi elucidates this philosophy of making ‘the full
man’ characteristically. His idea of Basic education was considered as
spearhead of social revolution. He wanted to break the social stratum and brought
the downtrodden to the forefront of education. So the so called untouchables
were given the opportunity to receive education irrespective of caste, creed,
colour, religion, rich or poor etc.
He
said,“My idea is not to teach a particular profession or occupation to the
children, but to develop the full man through teaching that occupation. ….. I
want to bring about equalization of status.
The working classes have all these centuries been isolated and relegated
to a lower status. They have been shurdas, and the word has been interpreted to
mean an inferior status. I want to allow no differentiation between the son of
a weaver, of an agriculturist and of a school master.”
The
Principle of equality - a fundamental aspect of humanity through the
introduction of spinning wheel in schools can cause the inner awakening in mankind. As a humanist Gandhi desired to bring about a
change the wretched condition of India and to develop true humanity through
self-dependence. He uncompromisingly fought against the British Yoke and showed
the spinning wheel as the only alternative to save the yoked humanity. He
wanted to spread craft centric education among all the students belonging to
different sects, class, race and religion. To him disabilities could not be the
barrier in receiving education because hands on activities enable them to grow
confidence, self-reliance and above all self-realization. Inclusion of all into
the main stream was earlier advocated by Gandhi which is the main tenet of
inclusive education.
CONCLUSION:
Many
academics in the field of inclusive education point to teacher education and
school leadership as essential for the implementation of inclusive education in
the classroom (Ainscow, 2005; Sandhill & Singh, 2005; Booth et al, 2003;
Ainscow, 1991), yet the standard of teacher training courses across India
varies hugely, and they usually approach the inclusion of children with
disabilities from a deficit perspective. In the general teacher education diplomas
and degrees available nationwide, there is an optional ‘special needs’ paper to
train and ‘prepare’ teachers to identify and diagnose disability. However, it
is not an integral part of the training, and it does not train teachers to deal
with diversity or challenge negative attitudes (Singal, 2005a). This reinforces
the ‘difference’ of children with disabilities who, some believe, can only be
taught by teachers qualified specifically for them (Singal, 2005a). However, it
is ultimately teacher treatment of students in the classroom, rather than the
training per say, that would reinforce this difference.
Interestingly,
distrust in both the special and mainstream education systems leads some
parents to keep their children with disabilities at home for fear of their
abuse or neglect in the classroom (Julka, 2005), which may then be interpreted
by teachers as a lack of community interest in education for their children, as
demonstrated in the PROBE Report (PROBE, 1999). This raises the question of how
teachers are being trained to include children with disabilities and to what
extent they put this training into daily practice.
There
is evidence to suggest that many teachers do not feel equipped to teach
children with disabilities and complain that they need more time to instruct
these students (Mukhopadhyay, nd). Many government programmes have included a
teacher training component in an attempt to instigate institutional change.
However, a ‘special needs’ focus and a lack of training for management, combined
with didactic training methodology do little to alter the classroom status quo,
especially when responsibility is shifted on to a specialist resource teacher
rather than methods altered to suit all students (Mukhopadhyay, nd).
REFERENCES :
1.
Ainscow,
M. (1991) Effective Schools for All, London: David Fulton Publishers
2.
Ainscow,
M. (2005) From Special Education to Effective Schools for All, Keynote
presentation at the Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress 2005,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow
3.
Alur,
M. (2002) Introduction, in Hegarty, S & Alur M (eds) (2002)
Education and Children with Special Needs: from Segregation to Inclusion, New
Delhi: Sage Publications
4.
Balagopalan,
S. & Subrahmanian, R. (2003) Dalit and Adivasi Children in Schools: Some
Preliminary Research Themes and Findings, in IDS Bulletin, 34 (1), 2003,
Falmer: Institute of Development Studies
5.
Dasgupta,
P. R. (2002) Education for the Disabled, in Hegarty, S. & Alur M.
(eds) (2002) Education and Children with Special Needs: from Segregation to
Inclusion, New Delhi: Sage Publications
6.
Mukhopadhyay,
S. (2003) (ed) National Seminar on Partnership of Government and
Non-Government Organizations for Inclusive Education (October 15-17, 2003)
Report, New Delhi: National Institute of Educational Planning and
Administration
7.
Mukhopadhyay,
S. & Mani, M. N. G. (2002) Education of Children with Special Needs,
in Govinda, R. (2002) (ed) India Education Report, NIEPA, New Delhi: Oxford
University Press (pp. 96-108)
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Pandey
janardan, (1998)Gandhi and 21st
century, Concept Publishing Company, NewDelhi, (p.47)
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