SOcial and Economic Development: Inclusion and Inclusive Education

INCLUSION: A BIRTHRIGHT

Education is the most important factor in any country’s social and economic development. It builds human capital by producing informed and productive citizens. Education creates opportunities for marginalized and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities to become better adjusted and productive citizens.

People with disabilities are still at a severe disadvantage in terms of accessing education in many parts of the world, especially in Pakistan. World Health Organization (WHO, 1981) indicates that 10 percent of the population has some sort of disability, such as visual impairment, hearing impairment, mental retardation, physical disability, learning disability or multiple disabilities. Of these, only two percent have access to institutional facilities.

If children with disabilities are to take their rightful place in the community they should be provided choices, opportunities and status at par with normal school going children.

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

Segregated educational settings often alienate a special child in relation to other children in the home neighborhood. Although special instruction in a segregated setting helps them to acquire knowledge and skills at their own level it negatively affects their ability to associate with the other children in an ordinary school environment. It thus becomes difficult for these children to adapt as adults to life in the mainstream society.

Inclusive Education has evolved as a movement to challenge these exclusionary policies and practices. It has gained momentum over the past twenty years and has become the most effective approach to address the learning needs of all students in regular schools and classrooms.

“Inclusion does not mean abandoning the special h...

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.... The experience of someone joining a group and having to conform to the standards of that group is a very different experience from that of belonging to a group where one is accepted as he/she is. In an inclusive setting, participants are not only accepted as equals, they also contribute as equals. In fact, if students with disabilities are included in the neighborhood mainstream school from preschool onward, disabilities will just be accepted as a part of life.

CONCLUSION

When students with disabilities are part of mainstream schools ordinary students will have the opportunity to get to know them. This increased interaction with each other results in an increased acceptance of similarities and differences, hence improving the lives of all students, which will then have an impact on the larger community when they leave school and take their place in society.