Inclusive Education in India: Policy and Practices

Unit 1 Topic : Inclusive Education in India: Policy and Practices

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

• Separate education for disabled 1880’s

• Teacher Training for VI in 1960

• The Integrated education for disabled children scheme in 1974.

• National Policy on education 1986.

• Project Integrated Education For disabled 1987.

• Rehabilitation Council India Act 1992.

• Programme of Action 1992.

• PWD ACT 1995.

• DPEP 1997.

• Nation Trust Act 1999.

• SSA 2000. • Making all school disabled friendly by 2020(2005).

National policies, programmes and legislation

            School education in India is a joint responsibility of the state and the central government. While the

organization and structure of education are largely the concern of the state, central government is primarily responsible for quality of education (Department of Education, 2004). There are slight variations in howschool education is organised across different states in India (Singal, 2006).Schooling across most states (despite some variations) consists of three stages: primary, upper primary or middle, and secondary education. Children aged from6 to 11 years attend primary school (Grades 1–V), those aged from 11 to 14 years attend upper primary or middle school (Grade VI–VII) and those aged from 15 to18 attend secondary school (Singal, 2006). Children, including those with adisability, up to the age of 14 years have a fundamental right to education in India. However, a large number of children with disabilities remain outside the school system. In order to understand the context, it is critical to shed light on government initiatives that have influenced educational programmes for individuals with a disability.  It is important to note that most of the work in this regard was undertaken during the past four decades.                            

            One of the earliest formal initiatives undertaken                   by the GOI was the Integrated Education for Disabled Children (IEDC) scheme of 1974 (NCERT, 2011). The objectives of this scheme included the retention of children with disabilities in the regular school system, pre-school training for children with disabilities and 100% financial assistance as per pre-scribed norms for education of children with disabilities. This implied that the scheme would provide financial assistance to schools to cover expenses relating to educating students with disabilities in their mainstream classrooms. In addition to IEDC, in its Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980–1985), the GOI consideredintegrated education of children with disabilities a priority (NCERT, 2011).

            Subsequent increased funding for integrated education and supplementary policies, legislation and programmes indicated the government’s commitment in this regard. In particular, the provision of integrated education as an integral part of the education system was reflected in the National Policy of Action (NPA, 1981), the National Policy on Education/Programme of Action (NPE/POA, 1986–1992) and the Project Integrated Education Development (PIED, 1987; see NCERT, 2011 formore details). The National Policy on Education (1986) specifically recom-mended a goal to integrate ‘the handicapped’[sic] within the general community, at all levels, as equal partners, to prepare them for normal growth and to enable them to face life with courage and confidence (Ministry of Human Resource Development, 1986).These early efforts brought the issue of inclusive education to the forefront of national discourse in the 1990s.They also called for much needed resources to aid inclusion. While structural changes were taking place on the national level in terms of policy formulation, changes were slowly becoming evident at the school and classroom level. Azad (1996) reported that PIED resulted in both regularschool teachers and students becoming more receptive toward students withdisabilities.The             Government of India implemented the District Primary Education Project(DPEP) in 1994–5. This programme laid special emphasis on the integration of children with mild to moderate disabilities, in line with world trends, and became one of the GOI’s largest programmes of the time in terms of funding. Approxi-mately 40,000 million rupees (approximately 740 million US dollars) werebudgeted to fund this program in 149 districts across 14 states (NCERT, 2011).In 1996, the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act was passed by the Indian parliament (GOI, 2005). This legislation became the hallmark of a new era for the education of students with disabilities in India. An essential aspect of the legislations was the emphasis it placed on the integration of students with disabilities into regular schools (Das, 2001). For the first time, the integration of students with disabilities into regular schools entered the realm of Indian jurisdiction. One of the key features of this Act was that any kind of discrimination against persons with disabilities now came under the purview of law through grievance redress machinery established at the central and state levels. At the time of the passage of the legislation, it was recognized as a historical milestone in the provision of educational and other services to individuals with a disability.

            A number of other policy initiatives have been taken by the Government of Indiasince the passage of the PWD Act in 1996. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),launched in 2001, is one such initiative (GOI, 2005). SSA had a policy of ‘zero rejection’ and mandated that no child with special needs could be neglected or denied enrolment on the basis of a disability. In 2005, the Ministry of Human Resource Development implemented a National Action Plan for the inclusion in education of children and youth with disabilities. Furthermore, in 2009 IEDC was revised and named ‘Inclusive Education of the Disabled at the Secondary Stage’(IEDSS). The IEDSS scheme provided the opportunity to all students with dis-abilities who had completed eight years of elementary schooling to complete four years of secondary schooling in an inclusive environment. Evaluation of IEDSS has shown an increase in student enrolment in 11 states from 2010 to 2012. In2010, ‘India implemented the Right to Education Act (RTE) to legally support inclusive education’ (Bhan and Rodricks, 2012, p. 367). In addition, a working draft of the PWD Act 2011 was prepared by the Centre for Disability Studies, University of Hyderabad and was due to pass in 2012 (Deccan Herald, 2012). The Act is a significant shift in the way disability is conceptualized by law-makers(Centre for Disability Studies, 2011), as is evident in the committee report that was responsible for reviewing the amended Act. The committee reported: ‘The new paradigm is based on the presumption of legal capacity, equality and dignity. . . .This statute recognizes that persons with disabilities are an integral part of human diversity, enriching it with their vision, their experience & their creativity. The statute seeks to provide a vehicle that ensures participation in society on an equal basis with others and seeks an equality of outcome by recognizing multiple discrimination faced by women and children’ (p. 5).Although the amended law has not yet been passed by the Indian parliament, it shows the government’s commitment regarding the implementation of policy initiatives for PWD emphasizing inclusive education. It is likely to be debated in parliament in 2015.

            The Government of India has demonstrated that it is committed to equalisingeducational opportunities for all children, including those with disabilities.Finding out how much of that commitment has translated into reality warrants careful examination of the extent to which the needs of students with disabilities are being met in inclusive classrooms. Our literature review yielded a dismal picture of the outcomes that the policy initiatives had aimed to achieve. For example, Mani (2003) argued that not even 5% of children with disabilities have been provided with educational services in inclusive classrooms, although the implementation of an integrated system of education began in 1975. Gopinathan(2003) contended that the percentage of students with disabilities attendingregular schools is even lower: only 750,000 students with disabilities receive educational services in regular schools, and the total population of students with disabilities stands at 30–35 million nationwide (Mitchell and Desai, 2005; Singh,2001).According to data provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development(2007), the number of students with disabilities served under various inclusive education schemes/programmes is 5,800 through PIED; 203,146 through IEDC;621,760 through DPEP; and 1.6 million through SSA. It is clear from thesefigures that the number of students with disabilities receiving services underinclusive education has been constantly growing.

            However, it can also be said that the efforts made by the government have only been able to touch the fringeof the problem, considering the number of students with disabilities in thecountry.In order to understand why progress toward the goal of educational inclusion in India is so poor, we have identified some of the key challenges that we believe may have contributed. We discuss these challenges under two headings: challenges at macro level (or at the system level) and challenges at micro level (or at the school level).

Reference:

Sharma, U. and Das , A.( 2015). Inclusive education in India: past, present and future. Support for Learning · Vol. 30 (1). Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/11799252/Inclusive_Education_in_India_Past_Present_and_Future