A short explainer on what inclusive education is (and isn’t!) and why it matters for the long-term outcomes of our children.
Inclusive education is a fundamental human right for every child with a disability. An inclusive education system is one that accommodates all students whatever their abilities or requirements, and at all levels – pre-school, primary, secondary, tertiary, vocational, and life-long learning.
There are 4 ‘levels’ of education accessibility:
- Exclusion: students with disabilities are denied access to education in any form.
- Segregation: education of students with disabilities is provided in separate environments designed specifically and only for disabilities, and in isolation from students without disabilities.
- Integration: placing students with disabilities in mainstream educational institutions without adaptation and requiring the student to fit in.
- Inclusion: education environments that adapt the design and physical structures, teaching methods, and curriculum as well as the culture, policy and practice of education environments so that they are accessible to all students without discrimination.
When disabled learners receive a quality, inclusive education they are more likely to achieve outcomes such as completing secondary schooling and going on to further study and employment. There are a number of flow-on benefits from this, for the individual, for employers, and for society in general.
For example, research on the Special Olympics program utilized the talents of people with intellectual/learning disabilities as co-researchers in the data collection process. The researchers with intellectual/learning disabilities were able to:
- Establish an easy rapport with study participants.
- Contribute to the comfort of the participants in the study.
- Expand on interview questions in novel and different ways.
There are lots of ways to be inclusive; ensuring adequate funding, resourcing, social and practical supports, and access to a variety of training opportunities – all in a sustained systematic fashion, makes a huge difference; to the learner, to the family and whaanau, to the school community, and to wider society.
BLENNZ and inclusive education
BLENNZ have a long history of supporting inclusive education for blind and low vision learners. A piece from the Education Gazette in 2017 provides a great explainer. BLENNZ is a specialist school that provides support for educators and learners in mainstream schools.
Figure 1: Image from BLENNZ website of Brianna and Braydon using their AT in class
The piece featured two learners, Brianna who is blind and Brayden who has severe low vision, and their RTV. Their story and success illustrates what effective inclusive education looks like in practice, and how important the transition process is in contributing to this. Having two students transition to the same high school, and at the same time, required detailed planning and preparation.
