ABSTRACT
Inclusive education is a significant project towards furthering egalitarianism. Laws that support inclusion are aimed at ensuring that all students have access to highquality education regardless of their level of ability. Inclusive teaching and learning combine into educational practices in which students with special needs are incorporated into mainstream classrooms. Such inclusion seeks to provide all students with opportunities to access high-quality education from professionally trained teachers and aides. Proponents of inclusive education contend that desegregated classrooms lead to higher quality education for all students – both those labelled as having special needs and those who meet the demands of the school system. They believe that segregated classrooms result in inferior educational quality for students relegated to the low-ability classrooms. Inclusive learning proposes that all students are capable of learning so long as
accommodations are made to their specific needs. In the ‘full inclusion’ setting, the students with special needs are integrated into classes which maintain appropriate supports and services. At the extreme, full inclusion is based on the elimination of segregated special education classes with the integration of all students. Thus, it includes even those that require the most substantial educational and behavioural supports and services to be successful in regular classes. Special education is considered a service, not a place, and those services are integrated into the daily routines and classroom structure, environment, curriculum and strategies and brought to the student, instead of removing the student from contact with her/his peers presumably in order to meet his or her individual needs. There have been many examples throughout history of students that have
‘struggled’ with the education system. ‘During his schooling days Gandhi was an average student and passed his matriculation exam from Samaldas College, Gujarat
with some difficulty’ (Government of Maharashtra, 2015). The Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu described as ‘all’ being connected (within the Dao) and that it is through this ‘connectedness’ or inclusion that we may excel in all our activities. Clearly, inclusive education relies on inclusive teaching. Such teaching requires
that teachers recognise, accommodate and meet the learning needs of all their students. It means acknowledging that students have a range of individual learning needs and are members of diverse communities: a student with a disabling medical condition may also have English as an additional language and be a single parent. Inclusive teaching avoids pigeonholing students into specific groups with predictable and fixed approaches to learning. In summary, inclusive teaching involves the whole school. It:
matches provision to student needs; takes a coherent approach which is anticipatory and proactive; has a strategy for delivering equal opportunities and diversity policies; incorporates regular reflection, review and refinement of strategies and methods
that actively involve disadvantaged students.
