School Readiness For Inclusive Education In Abbottabad District
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Date
2018
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Publisher
University of Management & Technology
Abstract
As the last few decades have witnessed a broad international movement towards the development of inclusive schools. The ultimate aim of the study is to find out the school readiness for inclusive education and inclusion practices in mainstream schools by exploring the level of awareness and to analyze the attitude and teaching strategies which are being in practice for the children with special needs in a mainstream classroom. The current study aims to investigate the school readiness for inclusion in Abbottabad district. The objectives of the study are to highlight the major component in which the schools are ready for inclusive education, investigate the status of the implementation within each component of school readiness, explore the head teacher's readiness for the implementation of inclusive education, explore the pro-active role of school head teachers to make their school inclusive, explain the challenges which head teachers are facing in order to implement the inclusion in Abbottabad district. The readiness was evaluated on the basis of quality components for effective inclusion. This was a mixed method research in which sequential exploratory research strategy (Qual-Quant) was used to conduct this study. The researcher used quantitative and qualitative research design and to collect data from head teachers and teachers working in the public and private sectors in Abbottabad. The population of the study was head teachers and the teachers working in public and private schools in district Abbottabad. The researcher used purposive sampling to select the sample from the population. A total of 300 participants were selected as sample, from which 15 head teachers from the public sector and 15 were from the private sector and 133 teachers were from the public sector and 137 teachers from the private sector. The first phase of the study was qualitative in which in-depth interviews were conducted to explore the perception of head teachers about inclusive education and their level of readiness to implement inclusion in their schools. The second phase was quantitative in which a questionnaire was used to collect data from teachers. The quantitative tool was adapted with the consent of the researcher who developed it. The adapted questionnaire is developed on the basis of “Quality components for effective inclusion education guidebook” (NJCIE, 2010), focuses on eleven quality components for effective inclusive education for the teachers. The Cronbach alpha coefficient was .89. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data obtained from the survey. The survey instrument was analyzed based on the frequency distribution of responses to each question given in the questionnaire. The study revealed that major component in which schools are ready for inclusive education is program implementation and assessment. The study revealed the status of the implementation within each component which shows that status of implementation within each area in schools of district Abbottabad is not satisfactory. Head teachers are not ready for the implementation of inclusive education in the schools. Even though head teachers are not ready for the implementation of inclusive education but still there are some head teachers those playing active role in order to make their schools inclusive. The major challenges faced by the head teachers in order to implement the inclusive education is that there is no educational policy regarding inclusive education by their provincial government and in their admission policy doesn't allow them to give admission to a child with special needs. This study recommends that educational policies of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa should be revised and Inclusive education should be part of it. Collaborative efforts of Government and private sectors should be made in order to implement inclusive education.
Description
Amna Arif
Keywords
school-readiness, inclusion, inclusive education, Abbottabad, quality components., M.Phil