Inclusive learning in schools

IN A country where more than half the student population is still unable to find a school let alone food to eat and clothes to wear, it may be facetious to talk about inclusive education. Like the girl child, the physically and mentally challenged child is the weakest of the weak and the ones that languish in the blind spot of society.

The right to freedom embraces within itself the right to live with dignity. Education is an intrinsic part of this fundamental right. Unless schools embrace `difference' they can never deliver one of the basic requirements of education, that of transforming an individual in to a human being. Inclusive education in schools can certainly offer resistance to the discriminatory trends that are being introduced through revised curriculum and so called value based programs, all working towards bringing in a society that is intolerant and divisive.

What is it then about inclusion that makes most heads of schools step back from adopting it? School leaders have often said that they lack both sufficient knowledge, financial resources or the necessary adjunctive technology to implement them effectively. This reasoning is at best suspected because the introduction of computer education into the general school population was heartily embraced, despite its attendant significant cost.

We need to explore the effects of recent trends in education such as politicisation, legislation, funding and the inspection process, which work in conjunction, to ensure that inclusion continues to be the `orphan child'. We also need to look at the historical role of education in society in order to understand better the nature of societal compulsions and conditioning.

The struggle to tailor education to the individual has been going on for long, and though the parameters have been altered to allow a wider student base into the educative process only recently have children's rights been seen as important societal and political matters of concern as opposed to regarding children merely as future workers. Both the history of ideas and economic realities have traditionall combined to shape education.

Historically, schools were set up by local governments or by foundations. These institutions often failed to recognise the value of education's role in combating discriminatory societal attitudes. The purpose of education has periodically been held to be the training of a future work force. In India, Lord Macaulay requested a ``breed'' of Indians who would essentially be recruits to the clerical class of the British bureaucracy.

Accordingly, only the fittest or the brightest students, as determined by ``society'', were allowed to enter into the education system. Disabled students therefore were excluded. Upon more close examination, we find that ``the barriers to learning and participation'' are experienced not just by those who have physical disabilities but by other disabilities too. Indeed, these barriers existed for other categories, namely, those with lower social standing, lower financial resources, emotional or mental difficulties or physical disabilities. Fifty years later the Ambani Kumaramangalam Report once again asks from education a conditioned workforce. Tomlinson (1996) in his report on Inclusive learning has pointed out that inclusive learning ``constitutes a program of fundamental reforms and affects all levels of provision and policy making.'' The question that naturally arises is, Are we ready for these reforms? The interaction of the normative and the personal produce specific social behaviour, and this in turn leads to a predictable social environment.

Society largely provides the normative institutional role, which subtly and not so subtly regulates individual behaviour. In contrast, the individual personality is governed largely by needs, be they emotional, spiritual or intellectual. It is in the interaction between the society's normative function and the individual's personal needs that inclusive education comes a cropper. This is so because even though the individual emotionally may want to adopt inclusive education, societal normative forces will work to bridle and to deter this personal need.

The transaction between normative role expectations and the personal phenomena result in a public school education system that is not friendly to inclusive education.

This is because the normative phenomena are based on the historical perspective of education as a tool to train a work or task force. This kind of set up required physically strong individuals with a mental capacity to fulfil certain basic functions.

Personal needs are governed by a strong sense of concern for others. In addition, personal needs are influenced by societal normative phenomena insofar as the person is concerned with how one is regarded by society at large.

The interplay between the constraints of societal normative prescriptions and personal needs prevents the full, unbridled expression of the largely humane personal needs. The practical mindedness of societal concerns tends to put a damper upon the desire to provide inclusive education to the less fortunate members of society. Providing a more inclusive educational regime broadens the base of contributing productive members. It has been said that a society will be judged by the manner in which it deals with its less fortunate constituents. In time the question of fulfilling the needs of society was replaced with fulfilling the rights of the child. Governments were the first to recognise that certain people have more rights than others. Such inequalities are rampant in society and it would be reasonable to expect that there would be inequalities in education as well. It could be argued that recognising the rights of additional students would lead to a lower level of entitlement to those previously benefited.

Societal attitudes towards the rights of their citizens, especially their children, are an interesting indicator of a given society's values and priorities. Rabindranath Tagore once said, 'Life's aspirations come in the guise of children". Associated with the concept of rights is a government's fiscal policy. Monetary policies directly impact which programs are funded and implemented. A society must understand that it needs to invest in its children.

Funding priorities are instructive. Rights and legislation are closely interrelated with funding. Policy makers and politicians directly connect legislation to the recognition and relative value of various rights. The conception of the breadth and nature of children's rights determines the extent and form of education afforded to students of differing abilities. Assessment and curriculum procedures are similarly determined.

``The rights of some are bound to conflict at some point and there can never be real equality of opportunity''. But a more enlightened perception of rights encourages a more careful and objective allocational efficiency and distributional fairness with respect to limited resources.

This calculus will often determine whether inclusive education will be implemented or not. There is considerable pressure for a school to take students who would be likely to do well academically. Good academic performance would enhance the school's reputation and image in the local press and elsewhere. The extent to which a society provides for its least able members is a measure of its degree of enlightenment and its strength.

If as Socrates, in a familiar passage in the Republic asked, ``... Is not the public the greatest of all sophists, training up young and old, men and women alike, into the most accomplished specimens of the character it desires to produce?'' the question that begs is what is the specimen of character we seek to produce?

ANNIE KOSHY

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