Inclusive Education

Inclusive Education (IE). It has been substantially proven that it is critical for children with disability to have come facilities and provisions as normal children. “Understanding and tolerance would reduce fear and rejection.” “Children learn best from peer interactions”.

The IDEA…! Awareness & sensitivity to differences, will only be possible if all a children live, learn & play together & understanding sharing & collaboration. Inclusive Education is therefore, a whole education system development, each enriching the other.

“Every child under 18 has a right to Education” The Indian Equal Opportunities and Right of Persons with Disabilities Act 1995, rule 26, speaks about free education of children with disabilities up to the age of 18 years in an appropriate environment. There is no specific mention of IE in the Act. Equal Opportunities , Protection of Rights and Full Participation Act was initiated in 1995 and implemented in 1998

PWD Act 1995 The Persons with Disabilities Act 1995 (PWD Act-Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) promotes the integration of disabled children into normal schools. Government should formulate schemes to provide part-time classes, non-formal education and education through open schools and universities for children with special needs. A comprehensive scheme with transport facilities, free books, uniforms and other materials, schools without architectural barriers, that provide a restructured curriculum, a modified examination system as well as scholarships for the benefit of these children.

Ankur has a low student to teacher ratio

Initiatives Required… A structural change needed to include children with disabilities in order to put their Acts of Legislation into place. Education aids, toys. Inclusive classrooms in community, State, Municipal & private schools. Special training given to general teachers & angadwadi.

Teacher Training…

Questions of Morality? Should society adapt to children with disabilities rather than them having to be normalized? Should children with disabilities be educated in mainstream schools (mainstream playgroups/nursery, Ed in ordinary schools & colleges)?

Should appropriate support be provided to them for this purpose? Is it mandatory for children with disabilities to be included into regular schools? Does segregation restrict understanding of each other? Are segregatory practices a violation of human rights? the Universal Declaration of Human Rights boldly proclaimed the inherent dignity and the equal rights of all members of the human family. Guided by the vision of equality for all, the Declaration enshrined the fundamental right of every human being to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Should they be kept out and be sent to special school, live in special residential places? Does “home based work” with disabled children become a Human Rights violation? Would students with “special training needs” be qualified as severely disabled or is it the society making him/her disabled.

Govt & doctors insist of label of IQ scores Govt & doctors insist of label of IQ scores. Should they be accounted for while judging if a child with disability be under inclusive/excusive strategy?

Community Initiative in Inclusive Education (CIIE) A 3 month certificate course which aims to prepare participants to be management personnel. Enabling them to run, plan and train others to run community disability services.

What has been happening… The associations that are conveyed construct the disabled as objects of pity and charity coupled with images of deviance, treachery, evil behavior and villainy. Another set of images portrays the disabled as capable of heroic efforts that result in overcoming the disability, setting an exemplary standard for others to follow. The objective of all these images is to posit disability as an oppositional category of normality. Unless equal opportunities are extended to children with disabilities in india, they will remain invisible, responsibilities of NGOs and private issues and remain to be termed “underclass”.

Classification of Disability Disability is associated with: Locomoter Vision Hearing Intellectual functioning What % would qualify is very subjective.

Understanding IE Of the 200 million children in the 6-14 years age group, approximate by 12 million are children with special needs (about 6%) . A study conducted by the District Primary Education Programme (DPEP) shows that only a million of these children are attending school (10%). A study in Tamil Nadu, conducted by the Spastics Society shows an average of six disabled children , per school in the state. Around 40% are not able to complete 5 years of basic ed, 20% leave before completing further 3 years of free and compulsory schooling as mandated by the Constitution (Amar Jyothi 2002)

Salamanca declaration India is either a signatory/has participated in the following: Salamanca declaration

UNESCO Imp issues that need to be addressed by the Govt., NGOs, and Civil societies to understand legal rights for children with disabilities and see if they are actually protected – what proportion goes to school and how many stay at home or in institutions deprived of child’s right to education, protection, play, health, family bond and alone. NGOs are mail service providers in the disability sector in India.

Govt policy in India To provide compulsory & free education to all children up to age of 14 years & focus on marginalized groups such as children with disability, working children, girl child…* The dimension of inclusive education includes : creating inclusive cultures; producing inclusive policies & evolving inclusive practices. Pre-requisites – teacher training in inclusive practices, accessible schools, child friendly curriculum, material, methodology, evaluation systems, partnership with families & community. * Community-based programmes that promote inclusive education teacher development initiatives that assist primary school teachers to identify, assess and support needs of disabled children in the classroom, early childhood development interventions focussing on early detection and prevention of disability & preparation of children to enter mainstream schools.

Rule 6 of the UN Standard Rules for Persons with Disabilities states: ‘States should recognize the principle of equal primary, secondary and tertiary educational opportunities for children, youth and adults with disabilities in integrated settings. They should ensure that the education of persons with disabilities is an integral part of the educational system. General education authorities are responsible for the education of persons with disabilities in integrated settings. Education for persons with disabilities should form an integral part of national educational planning, curriculum development and school organization.’ The Indian ‘Equal Opportunities and Rights of Persons with Disabilities ACT’ 1995, rule 26, speak about the’ education of children with disabilities up to the age of 18 years in an appropriate environment’

Why inclusive is different from integrated education?

Integrated Education

The National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act,   No. 44 of 1999 (30th December 1999) The appropriate Government and the local authorities shall ensure that every child who is faced with disability has access to free education in an appropriate environment till he attains the age of 18 yrs. Integration of the children with disabilities in normal schools. Set up schools both under the public and private sector initiative so the the children have access to such places. There should be proper vocational training. There should be part-time classes for those disabled children who have completed the fifth standard but could not complete full education. There should be part-time classes for providing functional literacy for children in the age group of sixteen and above.

There should be free books and special equipments for the children with disability. There should also be open schools and open universities. Classroom discussions could be conducted by way of electronic and other media. Non-formal education should be provided in the rural areas by utilizing the available manpower after providing them the requisite orientation. Develop teachers training programmes. Transport facilities, removal of the architectural barriers, formatting questions for the children with visual disability etc.

Panchayat Raj Act As per the Indian Constitution, disability is a state subject. Education is Concurrent subject. This means that state governments have the main responsibility to develop programmes for people with disablilities. States disability is the responsibility of Panchayat Raj institutiions.

The Scenario Education of children with disabilities in India, has moved from segregation, special schools to integrated education. There is a national level central government sponsored scheme called Integrated Education of Disabled Children (IEDC). This project was started in 1980s and designed based on the experience gathered from a UNICEF assisted pilot project called PIED (project on integrated education of disabled children). In the mid-1980s many NGOs implemented this IEDC with grants from government. of India. This project is implemented by the Ministry of Human Resource Development. This is basically an itinerant resource teaching approach and one resource teacher was given to every 8 children with special needs. There are around 60,000 children with disabilities getting access to education under this scheme. By and large the project is managed by the NGO sector. Although the goals and objectives of the IEDC program were laudable, the number of children with disabilities enrolled was woefully small. For example in Karnataka state about 2% of all children with disabilities acquire education. About 1% of these children are enrolled in special schools and the balance 1% are in the integrated education system.

Why need to move from IEDC? IEDC was heavily dependent on resource teachers in the projects implemented by NGOs. IEDC implemented by Government teachers had a questionable quality because the teachers were trained only for 42 days. In the NGO implemented IED model the quality and support to children in rural areas was inadequate because the resource teachers had to travel from one village to the other, often covering long distances on foot. The time actually available for resource teaching was inadequate. The resource teaching approach in NGO models was also questionable because children were either pulled out from regular classes for resource teaching or they were asked to come before school and stay back after school. This was not a child friendly approach, more so for children in the 4th standard and above, who travelled a long distance, often from neighboring villages, to reach the school.

School reform needed to facilitate learning Traditional Approach InclusiveApproach Education for some Education for all Static Flexible Collective Individualised Teaching teaching Learning in segregated areas Learning in Integrated areas Emphasis on teaching Emphasis on learning child - subject-orientated centred Diagnostic / prescriptive Holistic Opportunities limited by Equalisation of opportunities exclusion for all Disability view Curricular view Labels children disability Planning is made on ability levels wise and opposes all kinds of labelling.

Several Institutes across the country for pedagogic processes National Institutes, 1 each for Mentally handicapped Hearing impaired Visual impaired Orthopedically handicapped Mental health Neuro sciences State Council of Educational Research & Training (SCERT) in 1970 to undertake improvement in quality of education before DPEP came into existence.

Efforts made to Increase Educational Access National Institute of Educational Planning & Administration (NIEPA) 1979 District Institutions of Education & Training (DIETS) estab 1980s & run pre-service & in-service teachers’ training courses & to provide academic support to schools in the dist. The Rehabilitation Council of India (RCI) Act 1992 regulates the field of special education. Since 2001 – International Centre for Special Needs Ed is being set up by NCERT (National Council for Educational Research & Training) in collaboration with UNESCO to develop replicable models of inclusive schooling practices available in Asia-Pacific region.

Review of IEDC evaluation conducted by NCERT Programme implemented by Govt. & NGOs has vast discrepancies in terms of teacher training & quality of services. Training programmes reduced from 1 yr to 45 days to 15 days & shorter periods. Lack in clarity whether they are awareness programmes or skill development programmes for general teachers or training programmes for resource teachers. No policy exists on the roles & responsibilities of teachers at different levels. NCERT is making effort to evolve a framework in collaboration with NGOs for such discrepancies. National Open school (NOS) – bringing in flexibility in curriculum and examination procedures. It is becoming increasingly popular with Children with special needs.

District Primary Education Programme (launched by GOI with World Bank 1994) “The concept proposes that all children, irrespective of the nature and degree of disability should be educated in general schools with normal children. IE is suitable on educational, social and moral grounds. Inclusive education makes classrooms responsive to the needs of the learner. It stresses on child centered pedagogy using peer tutoring, co-operative learning and group learning” - (DPEP 1997) 15 states – DPEP being implemented have made encouraging efforts to implement IED in: Created infrastructure (consultants, St Projects Committees, DRGs (Dist. Resource Groups), IED Coordinators at St Project Off (SPO) & DPOS. No efforts were made to promote integrated education ‘coz of lack of clarity on inclusive ed & lack of innovations to try inclusive approaches. Teachers need skill development strategies in inclusive ed coz that they can benefit from ‘common classroom teaching & learning practices’.