Creating an Inclusive School

PREFACE

With the advent of Right to Education, the whole scenario in the field of education has changed. It is now realized that special education is no longer the exclusive domain of special educators. Most school teachers serving in the main stream schools will have exceptional children in their classrooms who deviate from the normal children either negatively or positively. For their education, special efforts, empathy and understanding on the part of their teachers is required. In India, inclusive education is rather a new endeavor. The target of inclusive school is to include the children who were earlier excluded or marginalized due to their disabilities. To meet the need of SEN learners understanding, positive attitude and least restrictive environment is needed and it is the shared responsibility of regular class room teachers, resource teachers, therapists, psychologists, parents and communities. Regular teachers need to understand the children with exceptionality to develop a positive view and a rational attitude towards these children.

There is a major shift in the curriculum of teacher education programs with the aim to produce productive and efficient teachers in the present scenario. My objective in writing this textbook “Creating an Inclusive School” is to assist the teachers in fulfilling the aims of inclusive education. This book includes complete information regarding all disabilities like visual, hearing, physical, mental retardation, learning disability and neurological disabilities, their identification, characteristics and special provisions to facilitate their education. The assistive technology for SEN children, barriers in their education and special provision in terms of infrastructure in inclusive schools is also discussed in the textbook. Transition from segregation to inclusion and legal provision under various acts and policies undertaken by the government are also explained. Effective classroom practices like peer tutoring, cooperative learning, social learning, buddy learning and use of ICT and role of various national institutes, government organizations, NGOs, parents and community have also been elaborated in simple language in various chapters.

In preparing the manuscript I was influenced by what I learnt during my M.Ed. in Special Education from Kurukshetra University, kurukshetra and my interaction with the learning disabled students while pursuing my doctorate degree and particularly some outstanding literature on education of exceptional children. This book caters to the need of teachers to be and will also help the parents and community to understand SEN children.

I am grateful to all those who directly or indirectly helped me to shape my efforts. I am particularly thankful to the authors and publishers whose books have helped me to summarize and incorporate the findings in the area of inclusive education. I extend my special thanks and appreciation to Vikesh Bhargava Managing Director, M/s Rakhi Printers who transformed the material into a well-organized book.

My special thanks to Dr. N. S. Mavi, former Professor and chairman,

Department of Education, Kurukshetra University, Kurukshetra for critically going

through the manuscript and making thoughtful suggestions for improvement. I

will appreciate the comments and suggestions if any for the improvement of the

quality of the book from my readers.

Suman Singh