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The Importance Of Inclusive Education In Schools

Discussion on the ongoing and continued inclusive education, its success and advantages for all in the education system and the importance of it continually evolving to the needs of students, the school environment and society in general.

Date : 13/10/2023

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Vivienne

Uploaded by : Vivienne
Uploaded on : 13/10/2023
Subject : Special Needs

  • The Importance of Inclusive Education in Schools.

    Successful inclusive education requires an educational system change. Much reform is design-focused and sadly resource-intensive. Inclusive education would include children that are together in mainstream classrooms for the majority of their day and it has been demonstrated that there`re wide spread positive effects on student achievement as well as social wellbeing for all involved, making for a much more efficient and effective learning process than separate special schools and special classrooms. The term ‘inclusive education’ sometimes can be rated to the education of children with disabilities as a primary motivation for inclusive education, however it is still synonymous with different attributes such as ethnicity and therefore language, gender and gender identity, and differences in socio-economic status. Inclusive education is a continuous process of educational transformation and measures of success must include educational quality, outcomes, and student experiences, with the continued evaluation teaching practices remaining critically important.

    There remain extensive barriers to inclusive education and these include inadequacies in legal policy and support, resources and school facilities. The unavailability of specialised teaching staff and specialised teacher training support along with the development of new pedagogical techniques, a flexible curriculum, a supportive leadership, and cultural attitudes all add to the failure of an all inclusive educational system. So within the current academic thinking, it has been suggested that it would be more useful to pursue ways that already exist, where successful inclusive education practices currently identified can be scaled up, rather than seeing and focussing on current deficiencies. Key to implementation at a classroom level would be the continued review and planning of individual schools and the implementation of ongoing training and supporting for all teachers in the modern inclusive practices, ¬ just ‘specialised’ ones, but all that can help at the classroom level. Supporting school leadership to support and enact an ongoing inclusive vision for their schools is also key to the success of inclusion for all involved. At a national level the requirement in implementation of such a policy needs a clear and articulate policy to enable and support such an inclusive education. This would include having strong systems of data collection, management and subsequent implementation, thus providing a continued flexibility in the curriculum to allow for new emerging diverse ideas to be implemented with good timing to have the desired effect. Allowing a good level of coordination with other areas of society in which inclusive education is an important factor such as employment.

    • Looking at definition of inclusive education we are reminded that according to the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN 2016), inclusive education means

  • • A fundamental right to education

  • • A principle that values students’ wellbeing, dignity, autonomy, and contribution to society

  • • A continuing process to eliminate barriers to education and promote reform in the culture, policy, and practice in schools to include all students.

    This is for a majority of the school day without the use of special units or special classrooms causing a segregation of those being taught, those with disabilities remain in a mainstream settings as long as they are able to adjust to the integration. Inclusive education is stated to be with the clear assumption that all children have a right to be in the same educational space (Cobley, 2018 Florian, Black-Hawkins Rouse, 2017 Hehir, et al., 2016 Schuelka Johnstone, 2012 UNESCO-IBE, 2016).

    The definition of the important of an inclusive education is in its positive outcomes for all children, to include both those with and without disabilities. The European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (EASNIE) (2018), has evidenced that an inclusive education increases social and academic opportunities for all students whether with or without a recognised disability. Thus children with disabilities enrol in higher education with significantly increased numbers and the likelihood is that children with disabilities therefore have higher chance of employment and better life outcomes (Florian, Black-Hawkins Rouse, 2017 Hehir, et al., 2016).T

    There are various definitions on ‘success’ in inclusive education, however the UNESCO (2017) Guide for Ensuring Inclusion and Equity in Education perhaps provides the clearest understanding of the best definitions of inclusive education and can be seen as successful, as detailed below:

    • 1.3 All partners who work with learners and their families understand and support the national policy goals for promoting inclusion and equity in education

    1.2 The national curriculum and its associated assessment systems are designed to respond effectively to all learners

    1.4 Systems are in place to monitor the presence, participation, and achievement of all learners within the education system

    2.1 The important national education policy documents strongly emphasize inclusion and equity

    2.3 Leaders at all levels articulate consistent policy goals to develop inclusion and equitable educational practices

    3.1 There is high-quality support for vulnerable learners

    3.3 Resources, both human and financial, are distributed in ways that benefit potentially vulnerable learners

    2.2 Senior staff at the national, district, and school levels provide leadership on inclusion and equity in education

    4.1 Schools and other learning centres have strategies for encouraging the presence, participation, and achievement of all learners from their local community

    4.3 Teachers and support staff are prepared to respond to learner diversity during their initial training

    Source: UNESCO (2017, pp. 17–36)

    Of course, inclusive education should remain a continuous process, so there should be no point at which is is felt that it is achieved. There should be a continuous evaluation and critical examination of the education system and in a large study of inclusive education in rural Canada, the attributes below were identified as being crucial to the ongoing and continued success of the inclusive education in Canada (Timmons Thompson, 2017).

    The study detailed the below as five main components of their successful inclusive education and its ongoing implementation:

      inclusive polices that promote high outcomes for all students

      flexible and accommodative curriculum

      strong and supportive school leadership

      equitable distribution of resources and

      teachers who are trained in inclusive pedagogy and view it as their role to teach all learners in a diverse classroom.

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    This resource was uploaded by: Vivienne