Abstract

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION FOR DISABLED CHILDREN

It is said, “The children are our future,” so society must provide children with the best education possible.  At times, this is a challenge, especially educating those less fortunate, who are disabled.  Owing to lack of knowledge, educational access and technology, disabled children were initially treated as unwanted and segregated from other children. Later their education was carried out in special schools. In recent times there has been a shift towards having children with disabilities attend the same schools as non-disabled children. This is where the practice of “inclusion,” plays a big part in education.  Through the Disabilities Education Act, it states “the placement of a disabled student must be in the least restrictive environment (LRE), which is the environment closest to the general classroom in which the student’s individual needs can be met” (Curry School of Development, 2001).  This placement can be in a special class, resource room, or a general classroom.  Inclusion is where students are placed in a regular classroom for most of the day. To understand inclusion, we must look at its definition, origins, implications, and past and present research. In the educational setting, inclusion means that all students, including those with mild and those with severe disabilities, be placed in the least restrictive environment available. This often means the regular classroom. Inclusion is not synonymous with mainstreaming.  Many people get inclusion confused with mainstreaming.  Mainstreaming is where students with disabilities are sent from a special education class to a regular class for specific periods throughout the day, whereas inclusion focuses on keeping a disabled child in a regular class for nearly all of the school day (CurrySchool of Development, 2001).  Services and supports are brought to the regular classroom as needed. The current inclusion movement challenges educators to look beyond mainstreaming to find inclusive strategies to meet student's individual needs. Inclusion calls for a more complete merger of regular and special education (Hines and Johnston, 1996).

Society is pushing to educate students with disabilities in conventional classroom settings.  However, this topic is very controversial and there are many advantages and disadvantages, not only for the disabled children but also for the children without disabilities and teachers. India has witnessed phenomenal expansion of the educational opportunities in the second millennium, our disabled children have not benefited substantially from this growth with the mainstream students. The education of the disabled children in India is more than hundred years old, but our services are far from adequate. The past two decades has witnessed the mushrooming of integrated education programmes. In India we could not admit even ten percent of educable children in the normal community. Different kinds of models in the integration are practiced and some were successful but there was not a single model of perfection. We need indigenous models as per the need of Indian Culture and Heritage, not the foreign transplants.