Decoded: Strategies To Educate People About The Importance Of Inclusive Education

Inclusive education is a participatory environment where all the students from different backgrounds are welcomed to join the regular classes and classroom activities in the school. This particular educational policy is specifically designed to meet the educational needs of the students belonging to diverse backgrounds so that they are also accepted and respected just the way all other students are.

The importance of inclusive education lies in the fact that it provides a better quality of education and learning environment for the children without subjecting them to any kind of discrimination. It facilitates a respectful environment where students with diverse abilities and backgrounds can learn, socialise and become a part of mainstream society.

Train the educators for imparting knowledge about the importance of inclusive education:

 It is the teachers and educators in the schools who are responsible for imparting an all-inclusive education to the students regardless of the difference in backgrounds and abilities. That is why it is important to educate them first regarding the importance of this particular genre of educational process so that the very purpose of this form of education can be fulfilled. The teachers need to be subjected to adequate training on how to make a class full of diverse students feel comfortable and welcome without having to worry about any stigma hampering their learning experience. With an adequate amount of training, the educators can themselves effectively contribute towards decisively eliminating the marginalisation of students with disabilities and thereby increasing the chances of normalcy in accepting the minority groups through equal distribution of learning in an inclusive curriculum setup or environment.

Educate the parents about the importance of inclusive education: 

This is a no-brainer that parents shoulder the biggest chunk of responsibility to play significant roles in every child’s life. As a result, they must be the primary recipients of the knowledge about and the need for inclusive education, and its importance in a child’s life. That is why the parents need to involve in the critical decision-making process associated with the implementation of inclusive education in the schools so that they can talk about the problems and requirements of their kids which can be considered while designing the learning program in a diverse school system. Just like the teachers, the parents also need to know more about the various ways in which they can reach out to the school authorities regarding the social, physical emotional, and cognitive requirements of their children so that the children do not feel alienated from their peers in a classroom environment.

Implementation of supportive government legislation:

Initiatives taken by the government can be very effective in helping the motivators and educators at large. It is important that the government’s laws, policies, and strategies to pilot models of inclusive education are implemented in the schools so that the authorities and the society, in general, can learn about the need for inclusive education and promote it. The thing about the government’s involvement is that once there is the stamp of administrative approval, it would automatically become a matter of necessity as well as curiosity for the public, especially the parents and the school authorities which will give them ample scope to learn more about the importance of inclusive education and why they should take all possible steps to implement it in their own capacity.

Form awareness campaigns for educating about the importance of inclusive education:

Aside from the government, the schools, and the parents, civic society through the agency of non-profit organisations, teachers’ associations, and civil society groups must also try to launch more and more awareness campaigns to penetrate through the society the information related to inclusive education so that it is recognised across all sectors of the society, especially for children having special needs. These awareness campaigns can be equipped with empirical research on the barriers to education for children belonging to different social backgrounds or having any particular disability. In this way, more knowledge can be distributed across the parents, teachers, and the schools at the same time and a proper inclusive educational policy can be developed by keeping the requirements of these differently-abled children hailing from diverse cultures, communities, and strata of the society.

Inclusive education, both as a concept and practice, can be established by eliminating all the barriers to learning so that the threat of marginalization of individuals who are vulnerable to exclusion due to several reasons, perhaps primarily due to disabilities, can be mitigated. It can be said that in order to educate the children in a diversity-friendly environment the teachers must learn how to promote inclusivity in the classroom environment and enable a flexible teaching process to establish a positive learning climate for all the students. Besides that, it is also important to educate the parents so that they can evaluate from time to time whether the promised outcome of the concept of inclusive education post-application actually manifests and materialises thereby benefiting their child.