Many researchers and educators tried to define the theories about inclusion and conducted researches in this field. However, still the conception of "inclusion" has diverse perceptions in different societies. Having had an elective course on inclusive education and analyzed the value of inclusion, the rest of the message will share my understanding about this new concept.
First of all, I would agree with Jadrina's (2007) opinion that inclusive education has both narrow and wide sense. The meaning of narrow, probably because the concept of inclusive education is a new concept in our society and the meaning of wide is because this term covers many aspects all levels of education. Until I chose the elective course, regarding inclusive education I used to think only about children or people with physical disabilities. Having read plenty of literatures and conducted a research in inclusive field, now I envision the notion of equality in my mind. I started to understand why mainly international and non-governmental organizations raise this issue more and more.
Another case that increased my interest in inclusive education was job shadowing in one school with inclusive classrooms in Astana. After its exploitation, the school purposefully started to operate with inclusive policy, which was governed by the Ministry of Education and science of Kazakhstan. Since, the number of children with special needs raised from two up to more than one hundred. During job shadowing, I had a chance to observe second graders with 13 pupils and 4 among those were children with different special educational needs. The initial aim of this policy proposed not to separate and segregate children and I believe that initiators achieved this goal. I was surprised that students in wheelchair are not alien for others and I felt how the atmosphere in the school is very friendly.
To sup up, inclusive education is considered to be one of the educational priorities in our country and in order to realize this idea, we need to understand its meaning first.
Reference:
Jadrina, M. (2007). School Education in Kazakhstan: Possibilities of all children's equal approach to education. Third Workshop of the IBE Community of Practice, Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).
Dear Dinara, I totally agree with you to the fact that inclusive education is extremely new concept and not a lot of people understand its importance. Moreover as you mentioned, no public and governmental organizations pay a significant attention of its function and articulation in our country, except for international and private ones. Teachers and shools are providing high quality education to ensure that future citizens are equipped with the skills and knowledge that they will need to succeed. Regrettably, this quality education is not being consistently provided to students who have an intellectual disability. Our education system must ensure that every child receives the benefits of education as a member of a regular class in a regular school
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