Inclusive Education

The text “Inclusive Education” by Professor Tirth Raj Khaniya features in B.Ed. 1^st Year’s General English book (Tribhuvan University). The key takeaways from the text are as follows:

• Concept emerged in the 1960s.
• In order for a country to develop, it must capacitate its people from different sectors irrespective of their ethnicity, language, poverty, geographical location, gender, etc. to participate in socio-political life and the mainstream of national development. Unless a country empowers its citizens of all kinds to become professors, lawyers, engineers, doctors, bureaucrats, political leaders, etc. the country cannot enhance its overall socio-economic situation.  
• The ongoing activities, no matter how inclusive they are in the name and in the mode of participation, may not be sufficient to support those who are left out. Movements like Education for All, and Universal and Compulsory Primary Education no doubt enhanced the overall literary situation in different countries. However, such general programs – focusing on common learner, but not on individual difficulty – do not help to achieve inclusiveness in education. The main reason is that there are people with certain difficulties because of language, ethnicity, poverty, location of school, gender, treatment of school, etc. who in general conditions cannot take benefit of what the state offers for them. They need additional support to become able to utilize the facilities and opportunities the state has made available.
• Simply enhancing the supply side of education – establishing schools, hiring teachers and printing text materials – does not make a system of education inclusive. What can make a system inclusive is the way it recognizes individual differences and provides necessary support to individuals.
• Different people have different difficulties without addressing which they cannot go to school, and even if they go to school, they do not continue it because of their individual difficulties. 
• Inclusiveness in education is not just a matter of bringing pupils in the school classrooms. It involves a great deal of efforts for making education relevant, useful and a good friend in life. Unless people find education useful and meaningful in life, they do not pursue it.
• There are still a lot of children who have not seen school no matter what was done to bring them in. The reason is that whatever has been done so far has been inadequate to bring them to school.
• Inclusiveness in education works better when it is fully backed by national policies.
• To implement inclusiveness in education, it is necessary to consider mainly three issues: adequate school space, parental demands, and discriminatory (positive) treatment in school.