Inclusive Education and Its Implications for the Teaching Practice - Essay Example

? Inclusive Education and its Implications for the Teaching Practice 23 March Education is a crucial aspect of human growth and development because, as a tool for the socialization process, it aims to transform individual mindsets and perspectives. Therefore, education is a lifelong process whose end is to create individuals who can fit in the society (Swarup et.al, 2006); through education, individuals are exposed to relevant knowledge, attitude, skills, and information that are necessary for their future roles in society. This paper will focus on the topic of inclusive education with an aim of creating an understanding on the subject and to build on the existing body of knowledge on the same. The discussion will further delve into the topic by trying to establish the reasons why some groups of students experience unequal outcomes when participating in education and training. In addition to that, the discussion will also highlight how an understanding of inclusive education can shape teaching practices for excluded groups of students. Inclusive education is the educational approach or philosophy that entails provision of education and training to all students, irrespective of the socially constructed biases or perceived differences, to facilitate equal achievement of educational outcomes (Nvpie, n.d). Inclusive education aims at catering for all the needs and interests of the different types of learners found in the classrooms. In this regard, inclusive education takes care of individual learner differences of the learners in order to encourage participation in education and to enhance educational outcomes for all the groups involved. Learners need to feel that their unique needs and learning styles are attended to and valued by all the stakeholders involved in the planning and provision of education and training. The teachers’ task is to ensure that each individual learner receives appropriate individualized support and services that befits his or her needs without discrimination that could be potentially damaging outcomes (Nvpie, n.d). Diversity in the classrooms is a healthy aspect that can be exploited to boost educational outcomes in the provision of education and training; on the contrary, separation of learners leads to stigmatization and low educational outcomes both for the students with and without special needs. Studies have indeed shown that many students register higher educational outcomes when exposed to the richness and diversity of the general education curriculum following appropriate strategies and inclusion. In this respect, inclusion leads to enhanced learning within the classroom for all the groups of students including those with special needs and those without special needs. There are several approaches to understanding inclusion and exclusion and these have been expressed in a number of related terms such as mainstreaming, integration and full inclusion, among others. Mainstreaming refers to the actual physical placement of learners with disabilities with their peers without disability (SEDL, n.d); the assumption is that their disabilities can be accommodated within the regular classroom with minimal modifications. However, the special educator bears the primary responsibility for education of the disabled students in the regular mainstream classes; the disabled student must earn his or her opportunity to be mainstreamed through performance by keeping up with the pace of the entire regular class. In this regard, only students with mild disabilities can be allowed to interact with the non-disabled ones in the regular education classroom and to participate in the normal core curriculum content areas; the rest of the disabled students’ interactions with the non-disabled students are limited to recess times and meal times. Integration on the other hand is a legal term that has its foundations in the civil rights or racial desegregation legislation of the 1960s (SEDL, n.d); it refers to the actual assimilation of different groups of learners including both the disabled and the non-disabled in the regular classrooms. Integration goes beyond merely facilitating physical proximity by bringing the different groups of students together in the regular classroom to promoting academic and social integration. Unlike mainstreaming, this approach to inclusion calls for more than just minimal modification; all the disabled learners are totally desegregated from their self-contained classrooms or specialized institutions and incorporated into the regular classrooms. Inclusion can be understood based on values in that it involves providing education and training for all the different groups of students within naturally occurring settings. In other words, inclusion entails bringing the support services to the child inside the regular classroom rather than placing the special needs learners in more removed or segregated environments (SEDL, n.d). Inclusive education allows both the special educators and regular classroom teachers to collaborate in promoting educational outputs in the classrooms for all the different groups of learners. However, the regular classroom teacher bears the primary responsibility for education of the different groups of students including those with disabilities in inclusive education. Inclusive education ultimately aims at building the capacity of regular educators to deal with a vast array of learners with different needs (Konza, 2008). Education has been recognized and listed as one of the basic human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human rights of 1948, which entitles each child to access quality and relevant education and training (Swarup et.al, 2006). In this regard, education policies around the world have been tailored to ensure education for all regardless of the socially ascribed differences such as gender, religion, race, and colour among other bases of discrimination. The education process is supposed to take into consideration all the available groups of learners without exclusion to ensure equity and equality in the provision of educational opportunities and training (Miles and Singai, 2010). However, despite the concerted efforts by all the stakeholders involved in the provision of education and training around the world, studies have indicated there is a lot that needs to be done. Up to date, there are millions of children around the world, both youths and adults, who still experience exclusion from education; some are even victims of exclusion within the education system itself (Unesco, n.d). Exclusion in education undermines the spirit of inclusiveness, tolerance and equality as expressed in national constitutions and national policy papers because it leads to social isolation, stigmatization and social inequalities. The need for inclusion led to the proclamation of the UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education of 1960; this convention and other treaties from International human rights treaties have outlawed exclusion from educational opportunities (Unesco, n.d). The convention and other human rights treaties recognize the crucial benefits of classroom diversity in the provision of education and training, which eventually promotes learning. Education goes beyond simply ensuring access to education by providing schools for those who can afford them to identifying those factors that act as impediments to access leading to exclusion. Therefore, the task of educational planners should be taking proactive measures to ensure all the barriers to access in education are dealt with to ensure inclusion of all the groups regardless of the socially ascribed or perceived differences (Unesco, n.d). Different groups of students participating in education and training will achieve different levels of educational outcomes depending on a number of variables inherent in national education systems; the variables that either promote or impede higher achievement of educational outcomes are inexhaustible given the complex and dynamic nature of the education process. However, one thing that is clear beyond any reasonable doubt is that different groups of students experience the education process differently, and this results to the inequalities in educational outcomes. The role of educational planners and policy makers is to identify the particular variables that result to inequalities in educational outcomes in order to promote levels of educational outcomes for all the participating groups of students. One of the groups of students that have traditionally registered lower educational outcomes is persons with disabilities or disabled persons (Sachs and Schreuer, 2011); educational planners and policy makers in the provision of education and training have neglected this group of students(Miles and Singai, 2010). The lack of commitment from all the stakeholders involved in the provision of education and training to cater for the needs of the disabled students through inclusive education has had profound impacts on their educational outcomes. Low education outcomes registered by students with disabilities when participating in education and training can be attributed to factors within and without the school system. These factors include but are not limited to lack of support, adverse social attitudes, social isolation and inadequate financial capacity (Sachs and Schreuer, 2011); the above constrains are manifested through inappropriate methods of instruction, inappropriate curriculum, teacher characteristics, inadequate teaching/learning materials, and infrastructure. The method of instruction used in the classroom directly impacts on the levels of outcomes for the disabled students. Different methods of instruction are suitable for different groups of students and teachers must be careful to cater for individual learner differences; for instance, lecture methods may not be appropriate for deaf students or those with hearing impairments. The curriculum must also be relevant and tailored to suit individual learner interests and dynamics without exclusion of students with disabilities. Teachers must pay particular attention to the needs of students with disability to provide them with the relevant instruction and support that promotes educational outcomes. In many cases, students with disability may require support and specialized services from special educators and teachers must be keen to identify those learners who require support. Students with disabilities require specialized equipment and learning material such as the Braille for the blind and visually impaired; these equipment are often too expensive to procure and this limits their participation in education and training leading to low education outcomes for the group. The infrastructure of many learning institutions may not be ideal for students with disabilities because it is usually clattered without any discernible order; this impedes full participation of persons with disabilities in education and training thus low educational outcomes. Consequences for the traditional system of segregated provision of education and training to the students with disabilities are severe; exclusion of the disabled students from mainstream classrooms has profound implications on the social and educational abilities of the disabled students. Concerning the low education outcomes, disabled students have low prospects for career advancement and further educational opportunities in institutions of higher learning and vocational education. In addition to that, students with disabilities are unjustly locked out of educational opportunities due to their disabilities leading to socio-economic and educational inequalities within the society. Employment opportunities for disabled students are highly constrained because they are predominantly the jobs that require fewer physical abilities and skills. However, inclusive education prepares the special education needs students to participate in a vast array of integrated settings throughout their lives (Swarup et.al, 2006) Socially, the disabled students are usually unrefined because the segregated settings in specialized schools lead to social isolation that impedes social (Swarup et.al, 2006). Segregated provision of education and training inhibits interactions between the disabled students and the non-disabled students; because of this seclusion and physical separation between the two groups of students, the students with disabilities have no capacity to integrate with others. This segregation denies the disabled students the wonderful opportunity of play in naturally occurring settings where they can make friends and be happy. Interactions between the disabled and non-disabled students within the regular classrooms promote socialization skills of the disabled students and improve their self-esteem. An understanding of inclusive education is essential for dealing with the needs of disabled students with the aim of promoting achievement of higher educational outcomes. From the discussions above, it is clear that inclusive education has great implications for the educational theory and practice in today’s learning institutions. For instance, a clear understanding of inclusive education can potentially shape education practice for the disabled students; in response to inclusive education government policy, legislation, and regulatory frameworks, educational institutions will have to undergo certain adjustments (Ministry, n.d). This is due to cognizance of the fact that inclusive education goes beyond merely removing disabled students from segregated education settings into the general education settings. Similarly, inclusive education is not just merely the removal of disabled students from specialized learning settings such as specialized schools and taking them into the regular classrooms. The essence of inclusive education lies in the actual integration of all the disabled and non-disabled students in naturally occurring classroom settings for the purposes of both social and academic interactions; it entails bringing the special services and support to the disabled students in the regular classroom rather than taking the students in segregated settings. Taking disabled students and placing them in segregated settings such as specialized classrooms where the specialized services and support are located is unjustified discrimination. The segregation of disabled students negatively affects educational outcomes because the students experience harsh stigmatization due to the social isolation. Nevertheless, Education practice for the disabled students in inclusive education requires a total overhaul of current education cultures that are socially constructed. In this regard, merely closing down the unacceptable system of segregated provision of education and training is not good enough; inclusive education goes beyond dumping the disabled students in the traditional unchanged mainstream education system to a total transformation of education systems and societies (Ministry, n.d). The existing mainstream school systems will have to undergo crucial transformations in terms of physical factors, curriculum aspects, instruction methods, and teacher roles among other things (Ministry, n.d). For instance, schools will need facilities that are appropriate for SEN students, curriculum modifications, preferential seating arrangements, and modified desks among other things (Alquaryouti, 2010). This is especially because inclusive education calls for elimination of all those factors that act as impediments to access to educational opportunities thus leading to inequality in educational outcomes for different groups. A very pivotal implication of inclusive education is deconstruction of the misguided notion that some students require specialized treatment in segregated environments. In this regard, the regular classroom teachers have to adopt a multifaceted approach to teaching in order to cater for a vast array of students including those with various disabilities. Special educators on the other hand have to play an added role of guiding learning besides offering specialized consultation services; the regular teacher has to play the role of a facilitator of learning rather than just being the transmitter of knowledge. Learning has to be purely child-centred rather than teacher centred; the regular classroom teachers, whose primary responsibility is education of the disabled students, are to promote equal achievement of educational outcomes. This is done by identifying and paying particular attention to the rich classroom diversity for the purposes of promoting equal participation in education and training. In trying to discover the best strategies that can facilitate learning for all the different groups of students in the classroom, teachers can adopt a number of multi-faceted strategies of instruction. These include but are not limited to curriculum-based assessment, joint teaching, and assessment of learning styles; other strategies include cooperative learning, peer tutoring and social skills training. The above strategies are good for teaching, not only for the specialized educator, but also for the regular teacher in inclusive education; a clear commitment to these strategies is more likely to promote equality in educational outcomes (Bauman, 2005). Developed countries around the world have responded to the social justice agenda in a multifaceted fashion especially for the SEN students’ education; for instance, the US caters for the rights of the disabled children through its legislation. Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and the Individuals with Disability Act of 1990 provide for the education of SEN to enhance participation, improve educational outcomes for the group and to promote social equality (Konza, 2008). Ultimately, inclusive education is the only solution for eliminating the inequalities in educational outcomes for the different groups of students participating in education and training. Inclusive education promotes equal achievement of educational outcomes because all the excluded groups of students are allowed to access educational opportunities in their neighbourhood schools and to interact with their neighbourhood friends. The traditional system of segregated provision of education and training leads to stigmatization of certain groups of learners; this culminates to lower educational outcomes for the excluded groups. Inclusive education should be tempered with a total transformation of the education systems; a total overhaul of the educational systems in moving towards inclusive education will eventually lead to enhanced educational outcomes. References Alquaryouti, I. (2010). Inclusion of the Disabled Student in higher education in Oman. International Journal for Cross-Disciplinary Subjects in Education (IJCDSE. Retrieved from http://infonomics-society.org/IJCDSE/Inclusion%20the%20Disabled%20Students%20in%20Higher%20Education%20in%20Oman.pdf Bauman, G. L., et.al. (2005). Achieving Equitable Educational Outcomes with All Students:The Institution’s Roles and Responsibilities. Association American Colleges and Universities. http://www.aacu.org/inclusive_excellence/documents/bauman_et_al.pdf Konza, D. (2008). Inclusion of students with disabilities in new times: Responding to the challenge.Researconline.uow.edu.au. Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1036&context=edupapers Miles, S. and Singai, N. (2010). The Education for All and inclusive education debate: conflict, contradiction, or opportunity? International Journal of Inclusive Education; Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13603110802265125 Ministry. (n.d). What is inclusive Education?. Education.Gov.ck. Retrieved from http://www.education.gov.ck/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=649&Itemid=8 Nevada Partnership for Inclusive education (Nvpie). (n.d). The promise of inclusive Education. Retrieved from http://nvpie.org/inclusive.html Sachs, D. and Schreuer, N. (2011). Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in Higher Education: Performance and participation in student's experiences. Disability Studies Quaterly. Retrieved from http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/1593/1561 SEDL. (n.d). Towards a definition of Inclusion. Retrieved from http://www.sedl.org/change/issues/issues43/definition_inclusion.html Swarup, S., et.al. (2006). Education of children with special needs. Ncert.nic.in. Retrieved from http://www.ncert.nic.in/new_ncert/ncert/rightside/links/pdf/focus_group/special_ed_final1.pdf United Nation Educational, Scientific and cultural organization (Unesco). (n.d). Education: Addressing Exclusion. Retrieved from http://www.unesco.org/new/en/education/themes/strengthening-education- systems/inclusive-education/ Read More