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Inclusivity, Access, Opportunities, Rights, and Support Needed by Learners and Students With Diverse Disabilities
Abstract
This study delves into the inclusive education (IE) landscape, emphasizing its role in providing access, opportunities, and rights for learners with diverse needs. IE is considered a fundamental human right and a cornerstone for social justice. The research focused on thirteen teachers in Umgungundlovu District using probability sampling. Interviews, including one conducted by telephone, formed the data collection method. Analysis revealed that while IE embodies ubuntu, social justice, and human rights, challenges persist, including implementation issues, insufficient teacher training, large class sizes, and resource constraints. Approximately thirty percent of participants displayed negative attitudes toward accommodating diverse needs. Some teachers are open to inclusion with addressed concerns, highlighting the need for improved understanding. Urgent implementation of Salamanca commitments is recommended, with compulsory quarterly in-service training for teachers. Practical inclusion, coupled with informed parental engagement, is crucial for realizing IE opportunities.
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Inclusive education is a fundamental right of all students. Despite
international policy initiatives, educational exclusion is pervasive,
especially in the Global South, and disproportionately affects
disabled students. Barriers to inclusive education have been
itemised in the literature, but in this conceptual paper that offers
a novel perspective on the topic, we argue for a complexity
approach to understand its evolution. Using a qualitative
deductive content analysis of South African laws, policies, reports
and scholarly literature, we explore three path dependencies
from colonial/apartheid times that lock the country into historical
patterns of categorisation and segregated schooling. These
operate alongside the emergence of new and inclusive practices
by actors at a system-wide and local level, made possible by
inputs into the policy ecology. South Africa represents a complex,
contradictory educational environment that confounds the
expectation of linear progression towards greater inclusivity.
Instead of identifying barriers to inclusive education, we argue for
a nuanced understanding of the imbrications of historical
investments and drivers of inequality, with policy possibilities and
the impetus for transformation among system actors.
This chapter looks at the various research methodologies and research methods that are commonly used by researchers in the field of information systems. The research methodology and research method used in this research is acknowledged and discussed. The chapter starts off by providing a comprehensive introduction to research. Then the research methodologies and research methods particularly used in information systems are discussed. A significant effort has been made to clarify and provide distinctions between research methodology and research method. During the course of this research, when investigating the literature on research methodology and research methods, it was found that many researchers were using the two interchangeably. Therefore the two sections on research methodology and research methods have been treated separately. A section that compares and differentiates between the two is presented first, followed by the section on research methodology. Then the different types of research methodology are described and the two main types of research methodologies namely qualitative research methodology and qualitative research methodology is discussed. The research methodology that has been utilised for this research is discussed and the reason why the particular research method was chosen with proper justification is explained. Then research methods in general are discussed and the types of research methods suitable for information systems research are explained. The differences between the qualitative and quantitative research methods are elaborated upon. Since secondary data sources have been used in this research, a section is included to discuss the differences between the two and to explain the advantages of using secondary data sources for research. Then the research method, that is, the actual data collection and data analysis method is described and justification is provided on why the particular research method was chosen. Case study research method is combined with grounded theory research method for document analysis of archival data that was accessed via the Internet. Descriptive methods have been used to investigate the opportunities and issues of cloud computing with mobile phones for developing countries.
Cultural narratives on disability have received much attention over the past few decades. In contexts of poverty, limited information and everyday challenges associated with having, or caring for someone with a disability, different understandings have emerged. A project was set up to promote disability awareness in neighborhood communities in a rural part of Kenya, using a process of reflection and education. This paper reports on the first aspect–reflection. The aim was to investigate local understanding of disability as a co-constructed concept. The research questions were: 1. What cultural beliefs shape local understanding of disability? 2. What challenges are perceived to be associated with disability? A phenomenological approach was adopted. Focus group discussions were conducted with twenty-one community groups involving 263 participants and audio-recorded. The data were transcribed and thematic analysis was carried out. Visual maps were created to illustrate any interconnections, before establishing the final conclusions. Local beliefs attributed disability to: human transgression of social conventions, particularly concerning inappropriate family relations, which invoked a curse; supernatural forces affecting the child; the will of God; unexplained events; and biomedical factors. Challenges associated with disability related to the burden of caregiving and perceived barriers to inclusion, with stress as a shared bi-product. Local understanding of disability in this rural part of Kenya demonstrated overlapping explanations and plurality of beliefs. Two possible interpretations are offered. Firstly, oscillation between explanatory lines demonstrated instability, affecting broader acceptance of disability. Secondly, and more positively, in the face of challenges, the desire to make sense of the existing situation, reflected a healthy pluralism.
This qualitative study draws from Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, which emphasizes interaction between the systems of education. The study argues that if teachers are able to cater for diversity in their classes, the vision of inclusive education will be realized. Inclusive education requires all learners with the diverse needs to be able to access education and succeed in their schooling careers. Ten teachers who are teaching in the Foundation Phase were purposively selected to form part of the study; data were collected through interviews, observations, and document analysis. Teachers indicated that large classes, lack of parental support, training for teachers, and social problems of the learners were making the teaching of learners with diverse needs challenging. This article focussed on the factors that are considered by teachers in the study as barriers to catering of learners with diverse needs, concluding that if teachers are provided with support, more learners will be able to sail through the system of education.
Education of children with special needs has come a long way; from special education to integrated education and from integrated education to inclusive education (access to the main stream). In spite of the support by a number of policies and programs from time to time to accelerate the pace of all the efforts made in this direction the regular schools with inclusive orientation face many barriers and challenges. The challenges are –The whole idea of inclusive education is defeated due to lack of proper attitude and sensitivity on the part of teachers, parents, community and classmates. Lack of trained teachers, large class size, lack of child centered and relevant curriculum, limited appropriate teaching learning materials, teachers lack competence and will to modify methodology as per the need , lack of proper in fracture, lack of access to main stream and lack of participatory activities. According to Dr. Melissa Heston, Associate professor of Education, University of Northern lowa, ‘When good inclusion n is in place, the child who needs the inclusion does not stand out.’ To be able to deal with all the challenges it is necessary to sensitize people about it and focus on providing education of three H- Head, Heart and Hand especially education of the heart which is related to feeling aspect. As the formal schooling is rigid in terms of time, curriculum, learning pace, evaluation and is unable to accommodate and retain children with special need it is necessary to look for an alternative strategy and approach. NPE (1986) also states that ‘future emphasis shall be on Distance and open Learning System to provide opportunity to the target groups. Strategies for Inclusive Education through Open and Distance Learning mode:
• Accessibility: ODL system is in a strategic position to provide access to education to the target groups. At present only 4to 5% of children with special needs out of 30 million have access to education.
• Training programs to be organized for all teachers to equip them with competencies related to cognitive and affective domain so that they will be more sensitive, and have a strong will to be committed to their calling.
• Researchers to be encouraged as they are they are the greatest innovators in the classroom using a number of approaches like discussion, participatory activities, role play, dramatization, group activity, brain storming, etc. to cater to the needs of all children .
• Preparation of child-centered learning material.
• Awareness programs for parents as majority of them are not aware of the problem their children are facing and how to help them. Some learners with greater difficulties may prefer to study at home initially through learning materials, audio visual cassettes or working kits can be provided to them.
• This paper will discuss some other strategies which can be implemented through ODL system.
In South Africa, up to 70% of children of school-going age with disabilities are out of school. Of those who do attend, most are still in separate, "special" schools for learners with disabilities. This situation prevails despite the push for the educational inclusion of learners with disabilities over twelve years ago by the South African policy document, the Education White Paper 6. In this article, we take a primarily top-down theoretical approach to policy implementation and focus on two main factors that hinder the implementation of inclusive education. Firstly, we focus on what we regard as the most significant constraint, namely, the apparent lack of clarity in the policy, i.e. ambiguity about the goals for inclusion and the means through which they can be achieved and, secondly, various issues around the poor implementation of the policy. We argue further that the primary means by which the divide between inclusive policy and practice will ultimately be closed is through the implementation and enforcement of education policy by the South African Department of Education.
In this study enrolment numbers and levels, as well as language-in-education, were viewed from a linear, comparative perspective. In the era prior to 1994, black and white learners not only attended separate schools but the segregated schools had different policies regarding medium of instruction. Resistance to the language policy regarding black education culminated in the 1976 uprisings. This led to the scrapping of both Afrikaans and black home languages as language of instruction in black schools. After the uprisings, black schools followed a policy of decreasing bilingualism. After 1994, in the spirit of democracy, official and educational status were granted to eleven languages. Deep-seated distrust and fear, that home-language education would lead to impoverishment, social and political isolation, and disempowerment, caused the majority of South African learners to prefer English rather than their home language as language of instruction. From a linear comparison, it transpires that the language-in-education situation in the classroom has changed very little since 1994. Enrolment numbers and levels, particularly the disparities between white and black, were other points of criticism regarding the education system before 1994. Prior to 1994, compulsory education had only been fully implemented with regard to the white and, to a lesser extent, Indian and coloured sections of the population. The vision that the ANC had in 1955, that "the doors of learning shall be open", was only reflected in policy documents and laws. Both primary-school and secondary-school enrolment numbers showed an increase after the ANC government came to power. The net enrolment numbers (1995-2004) for primary education showed a decrease from 95.0% to 87.4%,but the enrolment numbers for secondary education showed an increase from 56.0% to 67.2%. Despite the latter positive statistics, it would appear that the objective of universal education has still not been realised in South Africa.
This article considers the legacies of apartheid education and new directions taken since 1994 by first problematising the concept of an apartheid legacy, and then examining it within the broader historical context of the emergence of a racially differentiated system of mass schooling under specific political and economic conditions in the twentieth century. The principal legacies that new policy in the post-apartheid period accordingly intended to address included (i) The racially-segregated and unequal financing, organization and provision of education; (ii) poor quality of education for black people; (iii) high youth unemployment and (iv) low levels of participation in adult, technical and higher education. The article shows how new initiatives for the reorganization of education, teacher policy, curriculum, skills development and higher education were introduced under specific economic and political conditions and argues that they have not shifted broader inequalities and have demonstrated continuities as far as learning outcomes are concerned. Contrary to apartheid denialist positions, this contradiction is explained by reference to the strong presence of the past in the present, the contradiction between educational intentions and outcomes and the dependent role of education in any social order.
In-depth interviewing is a tool for collecting rich information that can inform program development and evaluation. Learn the basics with this 3-page fact sheet written by Lisa A. Guion, David C. Diehl, and Debra McDonald, and published by the UF Department of Family Youth and Community Sciences, August 2011. (UF/IFAS photo by Marisol Amador)
The current entry describes the nature of chronic illnesses and associated stresses along with major coping theories and what it means to “adapt.” The state of the science on individual, dyadic, and family level coping with chronic illness is presented. The relationships between coping and illness adaptation, both positive and negative, are reviewed.
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