Inclusive Education in India - Idea, Need and Challenges

Abstract

Inclusive Education (IE) has emerged as a new approach toward educating children with disability and problems in gaining knowledge together with normal children beneath the same roof. It caters to the needs of all students collectively within one classroom, no matter their strengths or weaknesses. It seeks to maximize the ability of all school students. It is one of the only strategies to promote an inclusive and tolerant society. Approximately 73 million children of primary school age were out of school in 2010, down from a high of over one hundred ten million out-of-school children in the mid-Nineties, consistent with new estimates by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). About 80 percent of the Indian population lives in rural regions without provision for special schools. It means, there are an estimated 8 million children out of school in India (MHRD 2009 statistics), a large number of whom are marginalized by means of dimensions, like poverty, gender, incapacity, and caste. What are the present needs and challenges for accomplishing the goal of inclusive education? How will an inclusive environment meet the interests and needs of children with disabilities? How high-quality education and training can be efficaciously delivered for all children? Therefore, inclusive schools have to deal with the needs of all children in each community and the central and state governments ought to manage inclusive classrooms. Holding in view these questions, this article discusses in detail the concept of inclusive education, including the significance, demanding situations, and also measures to enforce inclusive education in India.