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After reading a post by Guldana Sapargali, I decided to express my view on the matter of inclusive education in Kazakhstan.
Trying
to meet the needs of diversity is not an easy task. However, the practice of
inclusive education has been widely used all over the world and apparently the
development of inclusiveness demands sufficient time and work (Florian, 2014,
as cited in Rouse et al., 2014). Kazakhstan signed several important
international conventions and developed its own legislative documents to ensure
an equitable access to quality education for all children regardless their
socio-economical status, gender, language, ethnicity, religion and health
status (Law on Education, 2011). In the context of Kazakhstan, as a matter of
fact, inclusive education is mainly understood in the framework of special
schools for children with disabilities. Nevertheless, throughout the last ten
years the country is experiencing small but still achievements along with
barriers that prevent from effective implementation of inclusive education
policy.
To begin with, the increased
number of inclusive schools and kindergartens, special classes within the
mainstream school, professional development programs for in-service teachers
and inclusive education track at Nazarbayev University are considered to be the
achievements of the implementation of inclusiveness in the country so far. But
the most salient success, in my opinion, is the inclusive school #65 in Astana which is to date 4 years successfully practicing the
inclusion at school. Having observed the classes where children with special
needs study alongside with their peers and talking to their teachers I realized
that this policy is “working” in Kazakhstan. The school is equipped with
appropriate facilities – lifts, wheelchairs and special classrooms- are there
to use for children’s comfort. Although there is the only school for the
country now, the fact that the school already functions proves that Kazakhstan
is slowly moving towards its ultimate goal which is making 70% of schools inclusive
(State Program on Development of Education in the
Republic of Kazakhstan for 2011–2020).
The process of implementation of
inclusive education is taking place slowly due to some drawbacks. Specifically,
treating children with impairments from the perspectives of psycho-medical
approach and focusing on their disabilities, which basically take roots from
the Soviet period legacy, is contemplated as the main barrier in the
acquisition procedures. In other words, nowadays most of the PMPCs are still
operated by the medical professionals who detect a child’s deficits (Markova
& Sultanalieva, 2013, as cited in Rouse et al., 2014). This is because the
medical approach still influences the way the society classifies people with
disabilities; people have negative attitudes towards disabled people and their
inclusion into community referring them to segregated groups. Moreover, it is
still accepted that defectologists should deal with these people in order to
make them “normal” and adapt the environment.
It has been more than a decade of taking actions towards the realization of the inclusion policy in Kazakhstan.
So far, a lot of efforts and work have been done, but still things need to be
improved. I think it is essential to point out that even having positive
attitudes towards the people with special needs can contribute to the
development of inclusive education.
References
MOES
(2010). State Programme of Education Development in the Republic of Kazakhstan
for 2011-2020. Retrieved from <http://www.edu.gov.kz/en/>
Rouse, M., Yakavets, N., Kulakhmetova, A. (2014). Towards Inclusive
education: Swimming against the Tide of Educational reform. In D. Bridges, Educational
Reform and Internationalization. The case of School reform in Kazakhstan
(pp. 196-213). Cambridge,United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
Dear Aliya,
ReplyDeleteI could even say that positive attitudes of the society is the most important for successful implementation of inclusive education in Kazakhstani schools. Having positive attitudes society could bring changes to the way inclusiveness is accepted now. I mean it will help to shift from medical approach to the social. Furthermore it will also help to solve the problems with other drawbacks like funding and facilities.
Dear Aliya and Zukhra,
ReplyDeleteI also agree that the main barrier to the successful inclusion is a negative attitudes towards people with special needs. There are several reasons for these attitudes.
First of all, we rarely see people with special needs outside when we are out. It is due to unaccessible environment. People with special needs marginalized. They feel themselves not fitted into mainstream society.
Secondly, stereotypical medical model of disability cause widespread assumption that having special needs means being disabled and abnormal. But who decides what is normal and abnormal?
And lastly, low awareness about types of disabilities make people react not adequately.
I hope that time will change people's attitudes and people with special needs will be taking active social life.
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ReplyDeletethanks for sharing useful information for students. If you want to join professional degree courses, join kazakh russian medical university.
ReplyDeletethanks for sharing useful information for students. If you want to join professional degree courses, join kazakh russian medical university.
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