Preparing
educators for the management of inclusive settings has become a priority all
around the world (UNESCO, 2005). In
case of Kazakhstan, inclusive education is totally new topic in all aspects of
education. “State Program of Education Development for 2011-2020” has set quite
ambitious goal to make to 70% of schools inclusive by 2020. Consequently, it
puts additional pressure on whole system of education and especially on teacher
training programs. According to OECD report there is an urgent need to train
and retrain 90% of teachers because most teachers are not able to manage
inclusive and diverse classrooms (p.66).
Retrieved from: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/teacher-preparation-program-rankings_n_3456389.html
As teachers are central agents in education, it becomes crucial to
provide them with appropriate skills, knowledge and condition. Frolin (2008)
claims that successful implementation of inclusive education is widely depends
on teachers training; both pre service and in service program’s adaptation may
build sufficient foundation for the provision of inclusion. Allday, Neilsen –
Gatti and Hudson (2002) assumes that initially teachers’ education programs
have not been responsive to the inclusion movement. Therefore, it is now
difficult to reform teachers training from general and special to inclusive.
Additionally, reforming teachers education program are subjected to the heated
debates, with supporters claiming that core subjects on various disabilities
should be integrated into the general education in order to prepare new
teachers to meet diverse needs and, opponents arguing that special issues such
as dyslexia, autism, AD/HD have different in nature and teaching strategies to
cannot be incorporated to the mainstream teacher preparation programs
(Kauffman, 2010).
It is widely
known that, the responsibility to meet academic and social needs lies mostly on
educators and the importance teacher education programs was admitted by number
of scholars (Fender and Fiedler, 1990; Slee, 2001; Booth and Ainscow, 2002;
Allan 2006). In summary, Kazakhstan is doing its first steps towards inclusion
and inclusive. In this sense, teacher preparation programs require new approach
and new thinking in terms of inclusion and diversity in the classroom.
References:
Allan, J. (2006) “The repetition of exclusion”, International journal of
Inclusive Education, 10 (2-3), 121-33.
Anderson, S. L., &SakalliGumus,
S. (2006). Preparing pre-service secondary education majors for inclusive
classrooms in the USA. International
journal of inclusive education, 10(6),
529-546.
Booth, T. and Aniscow M. (2002) Index for Inclusion, Bristol: CSIE.
Fender, M. J., & Fiedler, C. (1990).Pre-service preparation of
regular educators: A national survey of curriculum content in introductory
exceptional children and youth courses. Teacher
Education and Special Education, 13,
203-209.
Forlin, C. (2008) “Education
reform for inclusion in Asia: What about teacher education” Reform, Inclusion
and Teacher Education: Towards New Era of Special Education in the Asia –
Pacific Region. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 72-88
Kaufman, D., & Moss, D. M. (2010). A new look at pre-service
teachers’ conceptions of classroom management and organization: Uncovering
complexity and dissonance. The
TeacherEducator, 45, 118-136.
Ministry of Education and Science
(2010). “State Programme of Education Development for 2011-2020, Approved by
Presidential order 1118 on December 2010. Astana: MoES.
Thank you Bagdagul for your post!
ReplyDeleteIt is good that our country has goals in all aspects of public spheres. However, the goal to make 70% of schools inclusive seems to be unrealistic and obscure to me. What does this number mean? Is it about quality or quantity? I doubt success if it is about quality. Because as it was mentioned in your post teachers, who are the main agents in education, are not ready for this change. And they are not ready for many reasons. First of all, most teachers are still unaware of this initiative and inclusive education in general, which may cause significant problems. Secondly, as far as I know there is no any pre-service education study programs in inclusive education as well as in-service trainings which means that there will be lack of professionals by 2020. I am afraid that when the time comes, teachers will suffer a lot, because they would not want to quit their job and no way will withstand the duty. So I wish government made its first steps towards inclusive education considering all nuances regarding not only teachers but all other stakeholdres.
Thank you Bagi for this post. I definitely agree with you, teachers must be prepared to meet diverse needs.
ReplyDeleteActually I am conducting my research on teachers attitudes towards inclusive education. Lack of teacher preparation in order to meet diverse needs is one of the findings of my research. Teachers fear to teach in inclusive class because they are not trained to do so. Basically, interviewed teachers in my research are holding positive attitudes, if only they will be prepared and all facilities will be offered to facilitate an inclusive class.
Another issue in my opinion is to implement inclusive education in 70 % of schools. A lot of things need to be done in order to make sure that we are not spontaneously integrating children with special needs into mainstream school, and one of the main things is to retrain teachers.
I hope we will be the ones who will try to smoothen the process making 70% of schools inclusive by 2020)))
Thank you Bagdagul for this post.
ReplyDeleteThe human resources are very important for implementing changes in educational system of Kazakhstan. So, for development of inclusive education it is necessary to start from professional development of teachers by providing special trainings. I suppose that in these trainings it is essential to include the psychological trainings for teachers, because not all teachers are ready to work in this sphere and do not clearly understand what inclusion is and how to work and behave with children. Another point is perceptions of teachers toward inclusion. From my practicum at school I remember a teacher who had individual classes with one of the disable child. She had negative attitude toward this child and always complained that she compelled to work with this child. How the child feel himself felling the negative attitude from the teacher. I am sure that your cohort will direct the changes in development inclusive education.