Issues in Inclusion and Exclusion in Education - Coursework Example

ISSUES IN INCLUSION AND EXCLUSION IN EDUCATION s Introduction Social inclusionrecent international concern has resurfaced in response to the various challenges posed by the increasing and persistent discrimination, exclusion and marginalization of groups that are vulnerable in all societies. As a multidimensional and interrelated process, exclusion and inclusion defines how individuals’ opportunities for meaningful and full participation in the principal social life spheres may be distinctively blocked or facilitated. The inclusion and exclusion process in turn contributes to unequal prospects that individuals need to economically and socially achieve through valued capacities, resources and credentials (Corbe and & Slee, 2000, p.121). Given the dynamics of social exclusion and inclusion, formal education is perceived to be playing a role that is sometimes contradictory and complex. On one edge, public schools serves as an effective and sufficient vehicle for dealing with marginalization and pioneering for inclusion into work, citizenship and other social participation spheres. On the other side, education systems are always perceived to inflame the socio-economic disparities perpetuation as well as other forms of discrimination that are based on a variety of factors such as age, gender, residence, health and minority status. Whilst the traditional perception of education that is inclusive aims at mainstreaming individual learners’ participation with education needs that are special, social inclusion concerns have based their focus on learners. As a matter of fact, numerous vulnerable groups of youth and children including young women and girls, those in the payroll, individuals coerced to seek refuge or are dislocated, orphans, individuals who belong to cultural, linguistic or religious minorities and those residing in extreme situations of poverty, conflict and insecurity and individuals affected or infected by the HIV/AIDS, continues to face exclusion from quality education. Furthermore, little attention has been diverted to a new phenomenon of vulnerability that results from the well-educated people emerging from high or medium-income background inability to involve themselves socially or/and productively in the society, resulting to the so-called “disaffiliation”(Booth et al., 2003, p.99). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to document how a pilgrim school might come up with strategies that would be more inclusive for both Calum and Elizabeth in the below highlighted case study. Case study Elizabeth is a fourteen year old girl and goes to a pilgrim school. She is an Africa- Caribbean and resides in British. Elizabeth is extremely temperamental making her to be rude in some occasions to her teachers. In addition to that, she claims that since her attendance to the pilgrim school, she is often picked by the teachers making her to be unfairly labelled as argumentative and confrontational. As a result, she feels that her claims are not seriously taken into consideration. For instance, she complained of being bullied by a group of girls in her class but nothing was done about it. Despite her performance being reasonably good, the teachers comments is that she is performing below her potential. Calum is thirteen years old and has just finished his initial year at the pilgrim school. He shifted to Yorkshire from London at the completion of his junior school. He resides with his father who works as a security guard and always works at night time. Calum has often been struggling with writing and reading and as a result, in his junior school, he was declared to have special education needs. On the contrary, these were not considered important enough to warrant a statement. Furthermore, he has not been able to receive any additional support in his secondary schooling. In his three years at Pilgrim school, he was excluded on three occasions for fighting with his colleagues and disruption. As a result, he does not frequent school regularly making his case to be addressed by the Education Welfare Service. The welfare is greatly concerned with the lack of supervision in the home life of Calum. Discussion It is widely recognised that the existing challenge for achieving quality education for all people is not exclusively of initial enrolment and access, but also of retention, regular attendance, achievement and attainment. This implies that, not only the vulnerable and marginalised groups of youth and children actually have an educational opportunity equitable access, but also quality education equitable participation must be ensured for all groups and individual learners as in the case of Elizabeth and Calum. Calum needs to be given an additional support in education given his home background. In addition to that, the Education Welfare Service should ensure education quality via utilisation of social inclusion perspective. As such, the perspective should be concerned about the need to ensure that the educational opportunities contributes to effective inclusion of groups of youth and an individual into the broader civic, socio-economic and cultural society fabric. Quality education is one that is inclusive. It is an education that endeavours to ensure all learners, tolerant behaviours and teachers’ attitude full participation. However, this was not observed in the case of Elizabeth. The teachers were not tolerant to her temperamental behaviour but instead labelled her as being argumentative and confrontational. Calum was not an exception. Due to his fighting and disruptive behaviour he was excluded from school in three occasions. This makes education to be a vehicle for enhancing participative and inclusive society and economy. For purposes of making education quality to promote social inclusion, there is need for educational stakeholders to come up with strategies that will eliminate or overcome barriers to quality education full participation for groups and individuals who experience marginalisation, discrimination and exclusion as in the case Calum and Elizabeth The school constraints There are some restraints which are apparent in Pilgrim school which could deter appropriate inclusion of Elizabeth and Calum and other pupils with special needs in the school. To start with, the school has uneven number of people who have special needs. The inclusion of few pupils with special needs in Pilgrim school complicated the learning environment for normal pupils. For Pilgrim school to be in a position to cater for student with special needs, it must come up with strategies that will provide favorable learning environment for student with special needs (Lee 2003, P.124). Admission of too many students who are asylum seekers is also a problem to the performance of pupils with behavioral problem. The combination of pupils with special needs with too many physically and mentally fit students is not a bright idea. This has led to frequent confrontation between Elizabeth and calum with other students and teachers. Combination of behavioral well up pupils with pupils who have emotional problem is more likely to harm pupils with special needs than to rectify them. It is also increase chances for student with special needs to harm others. To reduce conflict between pupils with special need and other normal pupils, the school administration should consider separating their learning programs. Furthermore, this combination put too much pressure on teachers in meeting the demands of all students (Malas 2006, p. 90). To counter this problem, teachers should be given special training programs to gain skills on the best ways of handling students with special problem. Additionally, student with special needs should be instructed to undergo special sessions for advice on how to cope up well with other students. Furthermore, it is also important to have an admission balance between students with special needs and those who do not have special needs. The school has to strategize on how to modify their curriculum to fit the needs of all students. The Pilgrim school has another problem of recruiting and retaining teachers. The school has been encountering a problem of recruiting new teachers. On the other hand, high staff turnover interferes with smooth running in school’s program. Lack of consistence in school operations interferes with the pupils’ performance. Appropriate strategies are therefore very crucial in addressing the problem of increased staff turnover. To start with, the school needs to recruit more teachers with special training on how to handle students with special needs. Secondly, the school ought to come up with a plan on how to offer special training to teachers and other involved stakeholders on the best ways of handling all students through co-teaching, reinforcement, and formation of group for special therapy. This will reduce pressure among teachers. School strengths The school has the advantage of having a new head teacher. The head teacher is committed toward reducing the rate of staff turnover in the school. For this to be effective, the head teacher must come up with strategies that can reduce the constraint associated with teaching in a school with too many students with special needs (McClanaghan 2003, p. 90). The school new head teacher should facilitate extra training for teachers on the most appropriate way of handling all pupils in school. In most cases, teachers with special training have special skills of handling students’ special needs. Special training will therefore give teachers a special knowledge of handling pupils with behavioral problem. On the other hand, the new head teacher should consider modifying school curriculum to accommodate students with behavioral problem (Stubbs 2005, p.250). Frequent meetings held by the new head teacher and other stakeholders to discuss the most appropriate ways of incorporating students with behavioral problem in the school curriculum is very relevant in satisfying the academic needs of students with special needs. To effectively accommodate pupils with special need in Pilgrim school, the new head teacher together with other plays must consider adopting group lecturers. Group lectures will improve the academic performance of student pupils with special needs. Frequent meeting held by the head teacher will also facilitate collaboration in school. This is the situation where all involved players will contribute in the decision making process. Collaboration will therefore reduce chance of teachers’ turnover. Strategies to eliminate discrimination/ Marginalization There exist various strategies which can be used to eliminate marginalisation in Pilgrim schools. Ideally, most of the strategies can be categorised as positive discrimination or affirmative action as they are the targeted interventions for the advantage of the likes of Elizabeth and Calum. In that case, in theory and practice, they should be strategies that are designed to enhance equality in the society. As claimed by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation(2001, p.3), one of the greatest challenge facing the world currently, is the increasing numbers of people who are excluded from participating meaningfully in the political, cultural and economic life of their societies. This makes a society not to be safe or sufficient for its people. The organisation also noted that, there exits positive outcomes when applying the critical theory while addressing inclusivity issues as a way of overcoming the barriers to inclusive education. This is because of its underpinning philosophy which is intolerant of the doctrines that impede access and equity. In our contemporary societies marginalisation is a real challenge. Pilgrim schools should use the following strategies to overcome marginalisation being experienced currently in the school as observed from the handling of Elizabeth and Calum. Being a regular school, it should have an inclusive orientation. Inclusive orientation is the most effective way of eliminating discrimination, establishing communities that are welcoming and building a society that is inclusive and achieving quality education for all(York & Henderson, 2005, P.5). To ensure inclusive orientation, the pilgrim schools need to enrol indigenous teachers that are highly trained for purposes of effecting inclusivity from within the system of education. Another strategy to ensure inclusion in education is through helping children that are socially advantaged as Calum whose father was a security guard. This will help these children to achieve learning outcomes that are better. As a matter of fact, there will be the need of additional finances for schools. If these finances are equitably allocated, then they are expected to yield considerable returns in the long run. For instance, contributing to a more productive and educated population. For purposes of promoting inclusive education, there is also the need to improve on the educational legal and social framework and find ways on how to cope up with trends that are new in the government and educational structure evolution. All countries need to acquire a legal framework that is sustainable. In addition to that, it should be able to acknowledge the right to education for all irrespective of class, gender, race, religion among others. Countries can only achieve this through affirmative or compensatory action that will ensure educational opportunities that are equitable for groups and individuals negatively impacted by discrimination. The affirmative action’s should also incorporate educational processes and also participate in providing the needed material for schooling conditions including textbooks, adequate spaces and other materials necessary for learning (Ainscow, 1999, p.125). In summary, educational opportunities segregation is a trend that is increasing in most countries. The increasing numbers of schools that are private illustrates clearly the above fact. Private institutions are always built to cater for specific demands of those parents who require their children to learn with individuals hailing from similar social level and sharing same cultural backgrounds and values. Some individuals have interpreted such a character as an exercise of choice of freedom and right to diversity. On the contrary, diversity solely does not necessarily guarantee cohesion socially. As a matter of fact, such a trend engineers discrimination after education in comparison to social inclusion. If there is need to consider social inclusion, then attitude change is paramount for purposes of turning from an approach that is demand based to need-based. Finally, the vulnerable and marginalized populations are not frequently included or consulted when searching for perfect alternatives for necessitating education quality for social inclusion. Nevertheless, it is stakeholder participation and levels of consultation in policy dialogue, implementation and formulation and linkages to various policies sector such as fiancé, youth, health, and labour among others that are very significant to guarantee an education that is of high quality for all young people and youth to be precise, for those under vulnerability and marginalisation conditions (Dyson, 1999, p.95). Conclusion Adequate strategies are very relevant in handling students with special needs. In the situation of Pilgrim school, the level of staff turnover is extremely high. This is due to the constraints common in the school. It is therefore important for the involved players to come up with strategies that will reduce the staff turnover. Offering special training to teachers is very relevant in ensuring that teachers have special skills of handling students with special needs. Frequent meeting will also enhance collaborative form of teaching where all involved players will have a role to play in the learning process. The school should also modify their curriculum to incorporate pupils with special needs in the learning program. This will help in reducing pressure to the school staffs and the students. The teaching method also requires modification to meet the needs of students with special needs. This will improve the performance Elizabeth and calum and other students with special needs. Bibliography Ainscow, M. (1999) Understanding the Development of Inclusive Education. London, Falmer Press. Booth, T., Nes, K. & Stromstad, M.(2003). Developing Inclusive Teacher Education. London, Routledge/Falmer. Corbett, J. & Slee, R. (2000). An international conversation on inclusive Education, London, David Fulton. Dyson, A. (1999). Inclusion and inclusions: theories and discourses in inclusive Education, London, Kogan Page. Lee, T. (2003). Inclusion in Education, New York, Marry grove College. Malas, S.(2006). Enabling Inclusive Education: Challenges and Dilemmas. Journal of Education, vol.12, no.3, pp.90-100. McClanaghan, M. (2003). Inclusion of the Special Needs Student in the Regular Classroom, Los Angeles, Canter. Stubbs, K. (2005). Avoiding Issue-overload: Core Principles and Diverse Discrimination. America Journal of Education, vol.23, no.40, p. 240-260 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. (2001). Including the excluded: Meeting diversity in education: Example from Romania. Paris: Author. York, F., & Henderson, L. (2001). Making possible the evolution of RATEP – a community-based teacher education program for Indigenous peoples. 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