Barriers of inclusive education
Inclusive education is important as it provides value to each and every child. It accepts all children regardless of their differences in interests, skills, intellectual level, beliefs, values, cultural background, etc.
- It ensures that each child gets equal opportunities to develop.
- It ensures that disabled learners get equal and quality education in the regular classroom with non- disabled peers.
However there are many challenges and barriers to inclusive education. Some of these barriers are:
1. Lack of facilities
It is one of the major barriers to inclusive education. There are no proper facilities are available in schools that fulfil the basic needs of students.
It has been seen that disabled children have to face many difficulties in schools due to the inability to access basic services such as good quality textbooks, medical assistance, transportation facility, special equipments, etc.
2. Lack of awareness
According to Union Nation report, 75% of CWSN in India do not attend any school in their lifetime. It indicates that most of people are not aware of inclusive education.
Moreover, they are not aware of the schemes and policies launched by the state and central government for disabled children.
3. Prejudice and discrimination
There is still a lot of prejudice and discrimination against children with disabilities. They often experience discrimination in everyday life which extends to the educational setting.
Even teachers can be seen to be discriminating towards disabled learners. As a result, it makes very difficult for inclusive education to succeed.
4. Negative attitude of society
The conservative mentality of society is also one of the barriers to inclusive education. There is a common belief in society that
- Educating disabled children is useless.
- They can’t contribute much to the society and nation.
- Disabled children should not allow being integrated into mainstream schools.
5. Untrained teachers
Teachers are not trained properly. They have no idea what kinds of methods and instructional strategies they should employ while teaching students who have disabilities.
They don’t know how to handle disabled students. They are not able to assist these students.
6. No Financial support
7. Non availability of resource room
A resource room is a separate classroom in the school building which is designed to provide remedial instruction to disabled learners. But most of the schools lack resource rooms and resource teachers.
As a result of this, needs of disabled children are not met and they are forced to drop out of school.
8. No flexibility in Curriculum
Inflexible curriculum is also a hurdle in the success of inclusive education. Inflexible curriculum does not cater to the needs and interests of children with special needs. It does not allow disabled students to find their potential and strengths.
How to overcome barriers in inclusive education
Following are some practices which can help to overcome barriers in inclusive education:
1. Financial support
Financial support should be provided to schools so that they can effectively run inclusive education programs.
2. Provide basic facilities
To overcome the barrier to the success of inclusive education, the basic needs of the disabled learners must be fulfilled. If they get the required support and healthy environment, success of inclusive education is inevitable.
3. Appropriate Curriculum
Curriculum should be flexible so that students can choose subjects according to their interests. It should be designed keeping in mind the individual differences so that each child gets ample opportunities to explore his talent and creativity.
4. Trained teachers
Trained teachers should be hired by the institutions to deal with the disabled learners. They should work collaboratively with other teachers to solve the problems of disabled students.
5. Awareness programmes
Awareness programmes should be run by governments, NGOs and other higher institutions to assist parents in realizing the importance of inclusive education.
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