Inclusive Education: Concept, Barriers and Suggestions

Abstract

Inclusion involves preparing pupils
for placement in regular schools. It implies
readiness on the part of the society or a
school to change from special to regular
schools. Students are expected to
acclimatize to the school ethos and the
other facilities. Inclusion is all about
making the regular schools, suitable for
children with disabilities by transplanting
the best special school practices, teachers
or equipment into regular settings even
without analyzing the needs of the children
with special needs including disabilities to
ensure if these are necessary or not.
Inclusion implies a radical reform of the
school in terms of conviction and
philosophy followed with curriculum,
assessment, pedagogy, grouping of pupils
and the school environment and ethos. It is
based on a system which welcomes,
respects and celebrates diversity arising
from gender, nationality, race, language of
origin, social background, religion, class
and caste, level of educational
achievement, disability etc. Inclusion
cannot be truncated from exclusion.
Inclusion can be defined in terms of two
linked processes. „It is the process of
increasing participation of learners in and
reducing their exclusion from the
curricula, cultures and communities of
neighborhood mainstream centres of
learning‟ (Booth, 1999). This paper
reviews some of the barriers in inclusive
education and suggests the measures to
overcome the barriers.