Goals Of Inclusive Education

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION PROMOTES EDUCATION FOR ALL

1.0 INTRODUCTION All children have right to get education on the basis of equality of opportunity. However, children with special needs are mainly at risk of being secluded or discriminated from their own rights. Hence, the Ministry has to invest and put more efforts in ensuring that children with special needs are able to fulfil their rights to education alongside with other normal children.

According to UNESCO (1994), Inclusive education is aiming at providing education for all children. In Inclusive education, school is responsible in creating positive and warm environment that welcomes all learners regardless of their difficulties, differences and disabilities. All learners are entitled to

In schools, inclusive classrooms will foster positive attitudes among the school members by educating all children together and leading to better social unity. Furthermore, inclusive classroom is the effective means of overcoming discriminatory attitudes and creating welcoming communities. Thus, the stakeholders and the students themselves play important roles in creating positive culture in the school so that every student can enjoy learning in harmony. One of the main goals of inclusive education is encouraging everyone to appreciate and value for diversity as well as develop understanding of the differences. Students with special needs in inclusive classrooms are found to be more accepted by their peers and included more often than their peers in segregated remedial program(Okagaki et al, 1998 and Slavin, 1992). This notion is also supported by Arnesen et al. (2009) who states that inclusion is not only an addition to the existing educational policy but it is also a process of changing the society, community and educational institutions to become more

Inclusive education can teach the normal students to become more sensitive and empathetic towards those who are different from them. They also will learn tolerance and develop some social skills such as leadership, interpersonal as well as communication skills. According to Salend (2011), inclusion assists the students with no disabilities to realize individual differences and needs, as well as start to understand and accept disability in real life. Thus, children of all ages, regardless of their differences should learn and being raised in an environment that represents the real environment that they will ultimately work in (Etscheld, 2004). Other than that, inclusive classroom will familiarize the students with no disabilities with their peers who have disabilities which in turn will help them to eliminate the fear and uneasiness that they often experience whenever they stay close to their disabled peers. Lastly, in inclusive classroom, students with no disabilities are often given the opportunity to assist their disabled peers in learning which in turn will increase their confidence level and self-esteem. The students with no disabilities will feel good about themselves for being able to help their disabled peers who are in need and this will encourage them to become a good mentor and supportive friend at the same