Inclusion of the Physically Disabled in Mainstream Schools - Essay Example

Significant attempts to transform mainstream/state schools and make them more inclusive to the physically disabled students have been made in UK. However, a lot requires to be done to make the mainstream schools completely accommodating to the disabled students. This paper focuses on the measures that mainstream schools in United Kingdom have taken to be more inclusive and meet the needs of the physically disabled. Additionally, the paper will focus on how successful or unsuccessful these measures have been in different institutions and whether the success depends on the resources that the schools have to their disposal.

In the recent past, the UK government has dedicated itself to ensuring that all children get equal access to quality education irrespective of their diversity. However, the governments’ objective has not been fully successful. Physically disabled children are one of the groups of people that have been discriminated against in most societies. Investigations the UK education department show that most mainstream schools lacked devices to support disabled student particularly before introduction of the inclusion program.

According to the medical model, most people view disability to be identical to disability or as a problem. However, other theories have been developed to counteract this notion. These theories include the post-social, affirmative, and the social models. These theories posit that impairment is not synonymous to disability. They argue that case of disability found amongst the physically challenged persons result since disabled are often not provided with the appropriate environment to reveal they potential.

This can be demonstrated by simple aspects such as lack of elevators in most state school, which makes it almost impossible for children using wheelchairs to attend such schools. These contemporary models have greatly contributed to the changes in mainstream school in London to make them more accommodative for the disabled students. Accommodation of the disabled in mainstream schools is in line with the social model, which argues that segregating of the impaired people is irreverent and a sign of oppression.

Most efforts made have been to improve the schools and accommodate individuals with impairments such as blindness, deafness, or other impairments that make it impossible for individuals to use the same facilities with normal individuals. Post-social modelists argue that segregation make the persons with impairments pity themselves. The social and post-social models are among the models that have greatly influence the development of inclusion programs in UK (Clough and Corbett 5-11). In ensuring that the physically disabled access quality education, the learning environment must be altered.

This is more important in cases where the disability requires the students to make use of supportive devices such as wheelchairs (Department for Education and Skills Web; Norwich 16-28). Importance of the Inclusion Program Ensuring that persons with disability are not excluded from mainstream education has been the most significant move in guaranteeing equal opportunities for all. There are a several reasons why inclusion of the physically disabled in the mainstream schools is important in UK.

One of the reasons is because education is considered crucial in