Essay On Diversity In Education

In the past education was not viewed as being for all. Pupils with disabilities / SEN were segregated from other pupils. “It is in every way undesirable that mentally defective children should be placed with normal children…they are a burden to their teachers and a handicap to other children.”(Commission of inquiry into Reformatory and Industrial Schools, 1936) Special Educational Needs were seen as medical not educational needs and provision was made accordingly. In the 1970’s 80’s institutions, charities and religious organisations, supported by parents cared for these children’s needs. In the 1944 UK Ed.Act ‘defectives’ were seen as ‘ineducable’ or ‘educationally subnormal.’ This led to a policy of isolation for training for such children, not education and this led to a policy of separate Special Schools.

This led to a move towards the social model of SEN. The feeling then was that the environment needed to adapt to the individual, that society disables people. Every thing in society was designed for normal people. Society needed to change. Society needed to accept that diversity was normal. There was a move towards integration internationally. In US 1975 The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed. In UK 1978 The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into the Education of Handicapped Children and Young People was introduced.

The Warnock Report( 1978) stated that” no child should be sent to a special school who can be satisfactorily educated in an ordinary one.”. SEN was seen as the school’s responsibility. Children could be educated in an ordinary school.

In 1994 at the UNESCO conference in Salamanca , Spain ‘inclusive’ orientation was proposed. Governments were urged to adopt the principles of inclusive education, enrolling all students in regular school unless there were compelling reasons for doing otherwise. Ireland signed up to this