ABSTRACT
As most education systems throughout the world embrace inclusion or transition towards it, preparing teachers for this role has become a key issue. It is readily acknowledged that teachers require appropriate skills, knowledge and dispositions if they are to successfully offer an inclusive curriculum and systems have taken a variety of approaches to support them in gaining these (Forlin, 2008). Teacher training institutions, therefore, have had to review the courses they offer to ensure that teachers are prepared to work with students from increasingly diverse backgrounds (Rose, 2007). In many instances institutions have been slow to respond to this need and newly qualified teachers continue to suggest that they are insufficiently prepared to support the needs of all students within inclusive classrooms (Forlin, 2007). One of the key issues which hinder a more inclusive curriculum approach for institutions, especially in countries which are embracing inclusion for the first time, is that teacher educators themselves are poorly equipped to take on the role of educating pre-and inservice teachers about inclusion; and that the existing curriculum is still very much focused on academic objectives rather than on a children’s needs perspective.
