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World
Education Forum
Dakar, Senegal 26-28 April 2000 |
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| Meeting
Special/Diverse Educational Needs: Making Inclusive Education
a Reality |
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Issues
Paper
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| Strategy
Session I.3 |
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Original
: English
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| 1.
Background |
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| 1.1
Inclusion as an internationally recognised policy |
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 Basic
ideas of inclusion can be found in many international policy
documents. The Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
outlines the rights of all children. Some of the most important
are: the right not to be discriminated against (art.2), the
right to live with his or her family, the right of a disabled
child to have special care (art.9), and the right to education
and training to help him or her achieve the greatest degree
of self-reliance and social integration possible (art.23). According
to the Convention, education shall aim at developing the child's
personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to the
fullest extent. This means that education shall prepare the
child for an active adult life in a free society and foster
respect for parents, his or her cultural identity, language
and values and for the cultural background and values of others
(art. 29, 30). |
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| Basic
ideas of inclusion can also be found in the previous work of
the EFA movement. For example, the Jomtien Declaration's principles
for promoting 'Education for All' emphasise the inherent right
of a child to a full cycle of primary education, commitment
to a child-centred pedagogy where individual differences are
accepted as a challenge - not a problem, improvement of the
quality of primary education as well as teacher education, recognition
of the wide diversity of individual needs and patterns of development
among primary school children, and commitment to an integrated
and holistic approach. (World Declaration on Education for All
and Framework for Action to Meet Basic Learning Needs, Jomtien.
1990). |
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The Standard Rules on the Equalisation of Opportunities
for Persons with Disabilities, adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1993, stated that education authorities are
responsible for the education of persons with disabilities
in integrated settings. Thus, education for persons with
disabilities should form an integral part of national educational
planning, curriculum development and school organisation.
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The Salamanca Framework for Action, adopted at the World Conference
on Special Needs Education in 1994, reinforced the principles
expressed in the Jomtien Declaration and Standard Rules and
stated among other things that "schools should accommodate all
children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social,
emotional, linguistic or other conditions. This should include
disabled and gifted children, street and working children, children
from remote or nomadic populations, children from linguistic,
ethnic or cultural minorities and children from other disadvantaged
or marginalised areas or groups. …In the context of this Framework,
the term 'special educational needs' refers to all those children
and youth whose needs arise from disabilities or learning difficulties."
(Salamanca Framework for Action. art. 3). |
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Today, a number of initiatives by countries, various multilateral
and bilateral organisations and NGOs support a growing consensus
that all children have the right to a common education in
their locality regardless of their background, attainment
or disability. The aim of inclusive education in providing
good quality education for learners who have been excluded
from education or whose participation within centres of learning
has been limited coincides with the aim of providing community
based education for all. Therefore, inclusive education brings
together Community Based Rehabilitation and Special Needs
Education agendas with the overall the Education for All movement.
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| Despite
the consensus on the right to education, children with disabilities
are still the group most excluded from schooling. How can the
Education for All movement contribute to improving this situation? |
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If
Governments are committed to achieve Education for All, should
they put an equal emphasis on providing education for currently
marginalised and excluded groups? Whose reponsibility is it
to ensure that such groups figure on the education development
agenda?
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| 1.2
Major features of the debate on inclusion |
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Inclusive education has evolved from a movement associated with
the struggle against exclusion of learners with disabilities
and others categorised as 'having special needs' to one that
challenges all exclusionary policies and practices in education.
However, inclusion is not a concept that can be clearly and
easily defined. It might therefore be better to view inclusion
rather as an approach or a principle that aims at removing any
barriers to learning. |
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However, there are different practical interpretations of inclusive
education especially when the position of children with disabilities
is considered. The following two interpretations are quite common:
(1) inclusion as being physically in the same place and doing
the same activities as other students, or (2) inclusion as social
acceptance and belonging (see Norwich 1999, 8-10). But as Norwich
argues, inclusion also implies a right to individually relevant
learning. This means that inclusion involves broad kinds of
rights that are "complex values over which there will be uncertainties
about their applicability." In practice this can mean that the
right to individually relevant learning may imply a different
educational arrangement than would the right to be in the same
place and participate with all other students. Of course these
values vary from one cultural context to another. |
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Some authors view inclusion as a process rather than an ideal
state or aim. For example, Booth believes that there are not
many examples of inclusive schools that include all children
from the neighbourhood, so it is better to think of inclusion
as an 'unending set of processes' of increasing participation
and reducing exclusion. (Booth 1996, 96)
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Inclusion as an approach forces us to rethink integration -
the term previously used in this context. The major shift in
thinking is that instead of preparing children to fit into the
existing schools, efforts should be made to prepare schools
so that they can deliberately reach out to all children. |
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| The
shift towards inclusion involves respecting a wide set of values,
and sometimes choices of emphasis must be made among them. What
do we value most? |
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| Which
of these values are universal and which are relative to the
cultural context? How can the values of local communities be
taken into account? |
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| What
are the practical steps to be taken in developing more inclusive
education systems? |
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| 1.3
Inclusion in practice - voices of reality |
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Full inclusion is what we all would like to see, but the way
forward is not straight, clear or easy. Research findings are
still somewhat controversial: one can find results for and against.
What is even more problematic, there are no convincing findings
of successful inclusive education on a comprehensive scale.
Experiences of small pilot projects may not be enough to convince
decision-makers that inclusion, as an overall approach, is beneficial
for all. |
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Furthermore many teachers do not fully agree and believe that
inclusion would work. An UNESCO survey (1985) on teachers' views
about integrated education found that countries where teachers
favour education of all children in ordinary classes have a
law requiring this. Whereas, in countries that offer sophisticated,
segregated educational provision, teachers are not in favour
of inclusion. Perhaps the teachers in the sample simply showed
an awareness of the official policy of the country, but more
likely their opinion reflected their own experience of those
policies put into practice. It has been shown also that teachers'
positive attitudes towards inclusion depend strongly on their
teacher education, experience with learners having special educational
needs, class size, workload, and the availability of support.
A recent study in Romania revealed that negative attitudes of
teachers and adults are the major barrier to inclusion - but
children do not have a prejudice unless they learn one from
adults (UNESCO, 1999). |
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Also, the voices of various advocacy groups such as parents'
organisations are often controversial, especially with regard
to the right to learn or the right to participate: many people
still believe in special classes. A recent OECD report (1999),
based on eight country case studies, concludes that there are
no barriers in principle to inclusive education in the countries
studied. However, there are remarkable practical difficulties
in trying to teach everybody together. One of the difficulties
is that some parents want their disabled child to learn in a
special class. Another difficulty involves safety issues: socially
and emotionally challenging pupils can be seen creating a physical
threat for others. Yet another barrier is the wish of some disabled
children to be able to study at least part of the time together
with other children with a similar disability. The OECD study
emphasises that in designing education services, these barriers
or wishes should be seriously taken into account. However, each
country is a special case, and the findings based on these Northern
countries may not be directly applicable world-wide. |
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| Research
findings are controversial and they are mainly from the countries
of the North. What attention should we pay to these findings?
What role could research play in the future? |
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| Different
advocacy groups, stakeholders and experts, voice different opinions
on some goals and steps to be taken towards inclusive education.
What can we learn from these different voices? |
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| Theory
and praxis sometimes do not meet. How do we transform the theory
of inclusive education into good practice? |
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| 2. The
focus of the strategy session |
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Many children are still excluded from, and within, education
for a variety of reasons. This Strategy Session will address
the issue of inclusion in education by examining the challenges
and barriers to learning throughout education systems and addressing,
in particular, the possibilities to increase access and participation
in learning for all children and young people. It is an unfortunate
reality that learners with disabilities are disproportionately
excluded from access to and participation in education and thus
deserve concerted efforts to address the situation. Therefore
the possibility for development and further action for learners
with disabilities or who have other special needs will be explored
thoroughly and set in the wider context of inclusive education.
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This Strategy Session is intended to serve as a platform to
share present thinking and experiences from different regions
of the world. The discussion will be based on previous regional
meetings and is thus linked to the efforts different countries
have made in developing inclusive systems that respond to diverse
learning needs. The following topics are suggested as the specific
operational issues for discussion in this strategy session as
they can lead to identifying important international strategies
that could contribute to developing inclusive education: |
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1.
Increasing the acceptance of diversity in schools through
development of more flexible curricula and more relevant
student evaluation mechanisms
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2.
Increasing the capacity of schools to meet the demands created
by more diverse regular education student population by
improving the teaching resource in schools.
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| The invited
presenters represent different geographical and organisational
contexts, so they will address these issues from their particular
perspective. Practical strategies and the sequence of steps
to be taken may vary according to these different contexts,
so the discussion should be sensitive to this diversity. |
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| Selected
References |
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Booth,
T.1996. A Perspective on Inclusion from England. Cambridge
Journal of Education. 26, 1, 87-99.
Norwich,
B. 1999. Inclusion in Education. From Concepts, Values and
Critique to Practice. In: Special Education Re-formed. Beyond
Rhetoric? New Millennium Series. Editor: Miles, H.London:
Falmer Press.
OECD.
Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. 1999. Inclusive
Education at Work. Students with Disabilities in Mainstream
Schools. France: OECD.
UNESCO
(1985) Helping Handicapped Pupils in Ordinary Schools: Strategies
for Teacher Training.
UNESCO
(1999) Inclusion in Education and National Development:
Case Study on Romania. (in preparation)
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