Abstract

The primary aim of the study is to establish the inclusive education as a significant factor to make education effective, efficient, and interesting. Besides that the enrollment to schools and colleges are not enough, the issue is to sustain the students and help them to achieve higher educational goal. The aim of inclusive education is also to support students with different disabilities and challenged. These disabilities and challenges are not only physical but mental, emotional, and social also. In this study the classroom activity with the role of the teacher is significant issues. And what collective efforts are required to implement the programme of inclusive education are required. In addition, the assessment of the work done through Inclusive education is required to check the positive and negative effects and its corrective steps. Children difficulties in school may arise from a multiplicity of factors related to special needs, language, family income, cultural background, gender or ethnic origin. In order to manage inclusive classrooms, teachers need training, which must be conducted by those who have knowledge and experience in inclusive education classroom management and organisation especially of multi-grade and multi–level classrooms. School is a place where students interact with one another both formally and also informally. It is a place where a child spends a lot of time in a day and also carries back home memories of all kinds that may be both pleasant and unpleasant ones. It is a place where children play and fight with their friends; sit together on benches or under a tree and chat with one another. It is important for children to feel safe, happy and wanted in school and expresses a desire to attend it every day. But many times it has been seen that schools are transformed into places where neither the students are happy learning nor the teachers are happy teaching. In villages, parents sometimes refer to school as a “punishment institution” realizing how unwilling their children are to attend their school. It is important then to develop schools as community institutions where the environment is so organized that interactions support and enhance both teaching and learning and all children appear to be happy. Schools are learning communities where a group of children try to learn together. Ideologically, all these children should have equal power to direct learning, and improve the existing practice. But this is generally not the case. Some children have more dominant voices than others and this tends to exclude those who lack the confidence to speak out their minds.

Introduction

“India is a multicultural society made up of numerous regional and local cultures. People’s religious beliefs, ways of life and their understanding of social relationships are quite distinct from one another. All the groups have equal rights to co-exist and flourish, and the education system needs to respond to the cultural pluralism inherent in our society.”

                                                                          -National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005

Inclusive Education means a system of education wherein students with and without disability learn together and the systems of teaching and learning is suitably adapted to meet the learning needs of different type of students with disabilities.

In spite of the progress achieved, the education system still fails to provide equal opportunities to all children. Unfortunately, the present system of education excludes many children on the basis of caste, language, gender, religion or disabilities. It is because of this reason that the literacy rate of persons belonging to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, girls and those with disabilities has been lower than that of the general population. The pace of learning of individual students is mostly not taken into consideration in the teaching-learning process and the child who needs special inputs in the class is not benefited by the existing system. Tragically, reality has fallen far short of the vision of including all children in education and millions of children remain marginalized and are still denied their right to education. Education today is also greatly influenced by the views of Mahatma Gandhi. He regarded education as an effective medium of bringing out the best in any individual and developing his personality in a harmonious way. He dreamt of “Swaraj” wherein every citizen of the country would be living a life, free of all kinds of exploitation and would be breathing in the atmosphere of total equality and fraternity. He conceived a scheme of education known as “Basic Education” or “Nai Talim” that was a self-supporting education system essentially for life and, what is more, an education through life. It aimed at creating eventually a social order free of exploitation and violence. Today, our major concern is that all children irrespective of their diverse social and economic backgrounds and variations in physical, psychological and intellectual characteristics must learn and achieve success in school. There should be no fear of discrimination, corporal punishment, abuse or teasing. The schools must plan their learning tasks and pedagogic practices in a way that all children are able to participate equally in the education process. It is important that a school must create an environment in which every child feels happy and relaxed instead of feeling tortured. Schooling The real difficulty is that people have no idea of what education truly is. We assess the value of education in the same manner as we assess the value of land or of shares in the stock-exchange market. We want to provide only such education as would enable the student to earn more. We hardly give any thought to the improvement of the character of the educated. The girls, we say, do not have to earn; so why should they be educated? As long as such ideas persist there is no hope of our ever knowing the true value of education. M.K.Gandhi should not destroy sensitivity and joy and create fear and boredom. The present-day education system must address all these issues and find solutions.

Inclusive Education in Classroom

In general, inclusive education is active and total participation of all students in the classroom activity inside as well as outside the classroom. In this regard, the role of teacher and students becomes important. To make classroom activity live and interesting, teacher is the first person and he/she should plan and do accordingly.

1. Teacher should approach each and every student and try to understand their problems, if any.
2. Every individual is different so as students. Teacher should accept the fact and work accordingly.
3. Teacher should not afraid of doing new and innovation experiments in the classroom to make teaching and learning process easy and effective.
4. Teacher should avoid discriminations based on anything. They should support and encourage students.
5. Teacher should know the use of technology and current affairs to make education process interesting.

The second important factor is infrastructure provided by school. If the school provides good and well-equipped infrastructure then students would like to come to school. At present, technology affects education in vital, so classrooms should be well equipped with smart board, projectors, computers and many more. Besides this facility the participation of all students are necessary. These kinds of infrastructure of modern age make easy to inclusive education by creating interest in education for students. In this process the third factor considered as good virtues and attitudes of teachers and students, which will be helpful to the students to accommodate or adjust in new environment and peer groups.

Each student has different intellectual level, understanding, personality, family background, and physical capacity to participate in educational activities. Teacher should find the ways and try to involve each student to all kinds of activities in classroom. Sometimes teacher should try some innovative or unorthodox ways to teach some students.

Teacher should apply some innovative techniques as follows.

1. The use of technology in education.
2. Use project work and presentation method to teach and assess students for full participation.
3. Use storytelling and drama methods for involvement of all students.
4. Arrange educational, industrial, historical, and cultural visit for students.
5. By knowing students interests, teacher should work and talk to students for the problems, solutions and development.
6. Don’t force students for study, give them time and let them grow themselves.

Efforts required for Inclusive Education

First of all, it is necessary to understand the approach of inclusive education by teachers and school. Mainly inclusive education is to be imply at classroom level by teachers and the important factor in whole process is teacher and teaching method. However, this approach is student oriented. There are few points to be considered at the time of preparing and implemented the policy or approach of inclusive education.

1. As per the RTE Act, 2009 government has introduced various educational policies and one of them is the compulsory enrolment of aged 6 to 14 years children to the near schools. Government has initiated at primary level to higher education but students come to school and stay for a longer period of time is significant but it is not the end of the education process. In fact it is the beginning, now the role school and teachers starts to involve each and every students to the education programmes.
2. The school infrastructure and environment is the basic factor for student to come to school on regular basis. The classroom should be well equipped with the furniture. It should be enough light and air circulation in the classroom. The use of technology like projector, smart board, computer etc, should be available. The prime focus of education is that student should come to school regularly.
3. There should be no discrimination on the basis of gender, age, cast, religion or any other reason. All students should be treated equal in the school and classroom. The differences on physical or mental level also should not be raised in the classroom.
4. The students in the classroom are with the different personality, availability and background. Teacher should try to understand the student and should approach appropriate teaching method. Teacher should not apply a single teaching method for all students because every child is different in physical as well as mental ability.
5. The next important matter in classroom teaching is involvement of each student. Teacher should try unique techniques in education.
   1. Group teaching & learning method
   2. Self learning by assignment and project method
   3. Group discussion method
   4. Different assessment method
   5. Identify the ability and weakness of each student and work accordingly with them
   6. Teacher should use different techniques to make study interesting
   7. Teacher should understand not only educational ability of student but also know the emotional and social approaches of the student.
   8. In present time the issues of LGBT persons should also be considered in inclusive education and treated as a normal.

In view of above all-inclusive education should be total involvement of students to educational as well as other activities and teacher and school management collectively take the required actions to make the inclusive education possible in true sense.

Effects of Inclusive Education in India

The zero reject policy of the SSA strengthened by the Right to Education Act, 2009, represents the most extraordinary expansion in the field of education. Right to Education implies that it is the State’s obligation to remove whatever obstacles—social, economic, academic, linguistic, cultural, physical etc.—that prevent children from participating effectively in completing elementary education of satisfactory quality. It goes further to indicate that free and compulsory education of satisfactory quality to children from weaker sections is not merely the responsibility of schools run or supported by the State but also of schools are not dependent on State funds. Schools of the latter kind also need to provide education to such children at least to the extent of 25 per cent of their intake. However, the policy relies heavily not only on the Central government but also on State Education Departments to play a crucial role in implementing education for all. Inclusive education, as we all know is all about removing barriers and increasing educational opportunities for all. It involves levels and kinds of educational gains for every group of students within schools. In spite of having good policies and faith at the administrative level, lack of resources and knowledge to accomplish the extraordinary goals may become a barrier. The numerical data depicts remarkable growth in quantitative aspect but still there is an issue of qualitative aspect in education. We have marginally fulfilled the goal of inclusive education but there are various issued regarding teachers education, availability of proper infrastructure, educational curriculum and many more. These unresolved issues of inclusiveness in classroom activity and goal achievement.

CASE STUDY FOR ASSESSMENT OF DIFFERENT TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

Case Study

Different teaching methods imply by teacher for primary section in Shree Nandkuvarba Kshatriya Kanya Vidyalay English Medium School, Bhavnagar, Gujarat, India.

I have adopted personal interview method to collect the data on primary basis from the teachers of primary section. For the study I have collected the different teaching methods on the basis of inclusiveness in classroom education from 15 teachers.

Fig.1 Different Techniques used by Teachers for classroom inclusion and its importance

Findings

In present era teacher should apply different ways of teaching to make education interesting and on the basis of above case study it directly seen that if teachers use kaleidoscopic approach in education then class room activity becomes interesting and students involve in most of the activities.

CONCLUSION

In accordance to the above study few noteworthy points to be focused for inclusion in classroom education are;

1. Government schemes and projects should be implemented in Proper and in true sense.
2. Educational institutes and teachers should understand the concept of inclusive education.
3. Discrimination on any basis should be avoided.
4. Schools should focus on quality aspect rather than quantity aspect in education,
5. Use of technology and other educational tools should be used in education to make education interesting, easy and effective.
6. Give equal importance of soft skills and motor activity with curriculum activity.
7. Importance of teacher education in teaching for various aspects like psychological, emotional, physical, social, economical.