Challenges to Inclusive Education and some solutions (English)

Hello and welcome again. In my earlier videos, we have seen how inclusive education accepts all types of learners. However, there are many challenges that need to be faced to implement inclusive education. In this video, we will look at the major challenges to inclusive education with me Dr. Sunanda Roy. There are time stamps or time codes put for each of the challenges. If you hover over the bottom of the video, you will see the titles of the challenges. You can skip to view the challenge of your choice. There are also given in the description box where you can click and watch the challenge as per your preference. At the end, some solutions So, let's begin. It is under the inclusion model that diverse learners with and without disabilities spend most or all their time together in the school. While inclusive education has its benefits, there are enormous challenges and these cause barriers delaying its effective implementation especially in developing countries like India. Let's have a look at a few of them. The first challenge deals with policies. There are various policies that have been put forth by the Indian government to help in spreading inclusion. However, the implementation of these policies needs to be done properly. All schools are directed to follow inclusive education as per the RTE that is Right to Education Act 2009 and the SSA, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. No school should deny admission to students based on any type of discrimination. However, in reality, all schools do not follow this mandate. These policies seem to have inadequate administrative provisions to assure proactive leadership. Further, it is observed that some schools claim that they are inclusive but they do not have any students with disabilities in their schools. Some actually follow integrated model of education and call themselves as inclusive schools. The ignorance about different schools and education systems is a challenge to inclusive education. This is because schools not following inclusion due to ignorance declare that they are inclusive schools and misguide parents. Do check out my videos titled Concept of Inclusive Education regarding the difference between the two education systems. The next challenge is unfavorable attitude towards inclusive education. The attitude of teachers towards inclusive education is a very important factor determining the success of inclusion. Teachers with negative attitude may not support the students with disabilities which other students copy. This makes the differently abled student feel uncomfortable and not accepted by the peers. There is lack of social awareness regarding different types of challenges faced by children and adults. Due to this, people consider challenges or disabilities as contagious. Parents do not feel comfortable if their children go to school with the differently abled students. Moreover, parents of students with disabilities are often in denial regarding their child's condition. This attitude is very harmful because if these students are not sent to inclusive schools and get the appropriate inputs, their conditions could worsen. The third challenge is lack of training of teachers to deal with inclusive education. Teachers who are not adequately trained in dealing with students with disabilities in classroom can cause more problems for such students. Inadequate training results in teachers unable to appropriately identify the needs of these diverse learners. If the teachers are not able to identify the difficulties faced by these students in the classroom, they can't provide proper learning experiences to cater to their needs along with the regular classmates. This affects the performance of the students with disabilities negatively as their needs are not satisfied. Thus, the problems of these differently abled students keeps on increasing until the child has to drop out from the school. This is totally against the objective of inclusive education. The rigid education system is the next challenge to inclusive education. The curriculum is rigid and not flexible. Also, it has very limited scope for modification according to the requirements of the differently abled students. Most of the subjects depend upon memory and less emphasis is given to skill development. This type of curriculum may not be useful for the differently abled students. For example, the uneducable, mentally retarded students need to be taught skills that will make them economically independent. Such courses rarely are included in the curriculum. The rigid evaluation system is based on memory, focusing on language and mathematics. Summative evaluation consists of a common final examination where students are given one question paper and are expected to respond in one particular way. This becomes difficult for the differently abled students as they have abilities that may not be evaluated by such a rigid system. The absence of an alternative flexible evaluation system is a big challenge to inclusive education. The fifth challenge is limited accessibility and provision of resources. One of the main features of inclusive education is to bring into the classroom the necessary physical and human resources for the differently abled students. Schools, especially in the rural areas, have poor basic infrastructure like no ramps or western style toilets and lack of appropriate human resources. Inclusive schools require different types of human resources along with support staff like nurses, counsellors, doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, etc. Thus, having sophisticated resources for students with disabilities is a big challenge for such schools. Many of these resources are electronic, which requires constant electric supply. This is not always available in many rural and remote areas. The sixth challenge is inadequate learning environment. Teachers rarely use instructional strategies as per the needs of the differently abled students. Generally, the traditional lecture method is used in most schools. As various assistive technologies and teaching learning strategies are not used, there is a sharp decline in the performance of the students with disabilities. Finally, these students are rejected by the education system and are denied appropriate education. Overcrowded classrooms where a teacher is expected to deal with as many as 50 to 70 students at a time makes it extremely difficult to identify the needs of all learners and cater to them. These teachers find it hard to cater to the needs of the differently abled students as most of their time and energy is spent in dealing with large number of students in the classes. So, these are the major challenges faced by inclusive education. However, there are some solutions. Let's briefly look at some of them. Mass media can help in increasing the awareness regarding policies and advantages of inclusion in the society. This will educate the people regarding the policies. Workshops and orientation programs for parents and the society as a whole can be conducted to make them realize the importance and advantages of inclusive education. This can help in changing their attitude to a more favorable one towards people with disabilities. Providing sound pre-service and in-service teacher training programs for inclusive education can change the fear and anxiety that teachers feel when asked to deal with students with disabilities in their classrooms. This will help in creating an empathetic attitude among teachers towards the students with disabilities. These training programs should help teachers master the skills to use different teaching and evaluation strategies to help the education system become less rigid and more flexible according to the needs of diverse learners. Schools can share their physical and human resources and thereby help the schools with limited resources give different facilities to students with disabilities. Incorporation of different teaching and evaluation strategies along with sharing of resources will definitely help to improve the learning environment making it favorable for all learners. So, the barriers or challenges can be reduced to a great extent. These are some of the solutions that can help in overcoming some of the challenges. The good news is that many schools have started taking teacher training seriously and are trying their best to follow the Right to Education Act by not denying admission to any students based on any kind of discrimination. Still, we have a long way to go for providing good quality education to all. We as teachers play a vital role in making inclusion successful. The pre-service teacher training program also has inclusive education to gear up the future teachers to deal with diverse learners. These are the references for further reading. Please watch my videos on different inclusive teaching strategies and inclusive evaluation. Using these strategies, we can move towards creating an inclusive classroom. You will find the links to the references and the videos in the description box and on the screen. I hope you liked the video. Please like, share the video and don't forget to subscribe to my channel. Thank you for watching the video.