Inclusive education in India: a lot of talk but not enough action?

India is committed to fulfilling the goal of education for all and ‘inclusive education’ is now a feature of various government documents and plans. However, between 35 and 80 million of India’s 200 million school age children do not attend school. In addition, fewer than five percent of children who have a disability are in school. Research based in the UK's University of Cambridge analyses how ‘inclusive education’ is understood in India and what influences decisions to include or exclude children.

Inclusive education in India is seen by many as a matter of providing education for children with disabilities. Many more children are excluded on grounds of gender, regional or caste differences but these are not considered. While it is recognised that these children need to be included efforts to do so are not well co-ordinated. Programmes for pre-school children, child workers, children from particular castes and tribes and those with special educational needs are all run by different government ministries.

The research was carried out in a sample of schools in Delhi recognised as having made progress towards becoming more inclusive. Although all but one of the schools in the sample are private and fee paying this does not mean that that private schools are for the elite: in Delhi and elsewhere in India there has been an enormous growth in private education due to the perceived failures of state education. Many of these private schools receive grants from the state.

Through interviews with teachers and head teachers and observation of lessons, the authors found that:

• Schools believe they deserve the label ‘inclusive’ as they include students who otherwise would be denied admission to the mainstream and are developing a range of responses to meet their special needs.
• Whilst head teachers are familiar with the term 'inclusive education' – and have picked up this term at conferences – most teachers are unfamiliar with the concept.
• Interviewees regard efforts towards inclusive education as being shaped by Western influences, rather than being based on Indian reality.
• Changes have been driven by government and parental pressure: teachers have hardly been involved and the voice of the child has been completely neglected.
• Decisions to include children were governed by issues such as the degree and nature of disability, perceived ‘IQ’, and behaviour of the child.
• Teachers received little or no formal training to help them meet the needs of children with different abilities and have made only small changes to their teaching methods: they primarily depend on informal and outside support from home tutors and parents.

Most practitioners seem resigned to the continuation of a system that excludes many and regards children’s personal inabilities and characteristics of mainstream education as the reasons why they cannot be included.

Arguing that Education for All will only be achieved through inclusion, the authors call for:

• the development of a shared understanding in Indian schools of what inclusive education means that is communicated effectively amongst schools with a view to forming common goals
• more teachers to be involved in decision-making processes within schools
• teacher training courses to address increased diversity in the classroom.

Providing access to education is only the first stage in overcoming exclusion from education. There needs to be a shift in perspectives and values so that diversity is appreciated and teachers are given skills to overcome the cycle of failure and frustration which inevitably results from limited teaching practices.

Source(s):
‘We do inclusion’: Practitioner perspectives in some inclusive schools in India’ in ‘Perspectives in Education’, No 21(3), by Nidhi Singal and Martyn Rouse 2003

Funded by: Cambridge Commonwealth Trust

id21 Research Highlight: 5 April 2005

Further Information:
Nidhi Singal and Martyn Rouse
Faculty of Education
184 Hills Road
University of Cambridge
Cambridge
CB2 2PQ
UK

Tel: +44 (0)1223 503256
Fax: +44 (0)1223 332876
Contact the contributor: sn241@cam.ac.uk

Contact the contributor: mdr1005@hermes.cam.ac.uk

University of Cambridge, UK

Other related links:
'One size fits all? Approaches to inclusive education'

'Class struggles: the challenges of achieving schooling for all'

'The evolution of special education in Kenya'

'Education for all? The challenges of inclusive education'

'Including disabled children in regular schools: the Ugandan experience'

'Educating children with disabilities in developing countries: the role of data sets' from the World Bank

inclusion-international.org