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Historical Perspective of Inclusive Education B.ed Notes
The Church Missionary Society helped Jane Leupot create the first special school for individuals with disabilities in India, which was a school for the blind. In Bombay, a school for the deaf was established in 1883, fourteen years later. Christian missionaries established a school for the blind in Amritsar in 1887. All of the special schools for persons with disabilities served individuals with physical disabilities during the 1800s; the first facility for those with intellectual disabilities didn’t open until 1918.
These institutions are perfect examples of the specialised, segregated special education programmes that were available in the 1800s and 1900s. Special schools started popping up throughout the nation by 1900. These institutions served as the main means of providing services to kids with impairments up to the 1970s.
Most were supported by nonprofit groups or individual donors, and the majority were for children who were blind or visually handicapped. Indians spent the first part of the 20th century battling for their freedom. Mohandas Gandhi, a prominent political figure and the founder of the Satyagraha movement, tried to counteract British influence on Indian education by establishing what he called fundamental education. Gandhi’s conception of education catered to excluded groups since it placed a strong emphasis on handicrafts, which benefited lower castes and individuals with disabilities, many of whom were accustomed to working with their hands and had no prior academic experience. This scheme was proposed by Gandhi in 1937. Even while his strategy shaped public policy for more than 30 years, it eventually fell short.
The first piece of law pertaining to inclusion and education in India was tried in 1909. Professor of English literature, mathematics, and political economy Gopal Krishna Gokhale “introduced a bill under the Indian Council Act of 1909 to make primary education compulsory,” serving, for example, on the Poona Municipal Council, the Bombay Legislative Council, and finally the Imperial Legislative Council. If this measure had been approved, financing for universally required education would have been available. It was rejected, though. In the 1940s, the Indian government’s policies and practises related inclusive special education were completely at odds with one another. The Central Advisory Board of Education recommended that students with disabilities be fully mainstreamed in its 1944 Sargent Report.
Post-Independence: Creating Policies for Education
India acquired independence from Britain in 1947, and the constitution of India declares comprehensive education to be a basic right of every person. It’s critical to recognise the differences between state regulations and their legal ramifications and constitutional rights. The constitution contains a list of rights, which are unqualified and entirely enforceable.
State rules vary greatly from one state to the next. According to Part IX, Article 45 of the Constitution, the state shall make every effort to offer free and mandatory education for all children until they reach the age of fourteen within 10 years of the beginning of this constitution. The Unnikrishnan verdict, popularly known as the case, issued by the Supreme Court in 1993 reinforced the importance of Article 45.
“Unnikrishnan vs. Andhra Pradesh State.” Article 21 of the constitution, which provides that “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty unless by the method provided by law,” must be interpreted in combination with Article 45 in this instance, the court found. In India, primary education is now seen as essential for preserving one’s life and personal freedom due to the requirement that these two articles be studied concurrently.
The Indian Constitution was amended to include a clause to this effect, although it wasn’t included until December 2002. According to the 86th amendment’s provision 21A, “The State should offer free and compulsory education to all children aged six to fourteen years in such way as the State may by law designate.” Although many people favoured this amendment, others objected to the age limitations. Many people also believed that the sort of education—inclusive, segregated, or other—should be outlined in the legislation.
The Kothari Commission
The Kothari Commission, which bears the name of its chairman, P.S. Kothari, was established by the Indian government in 1964. This commission was established by the Indian government to provide a strategy for enhancing the educational system. Sadly, the Government of India never carried through the Kothari Commission’s action plan, which included individuals with disabilities. We now turn to educate youngsters with disabilities, it says. Their education has to be planned on more than just utilitarian or humanitarian grounds. An appropriately educated youngster may often overcome their disability and become a contributing member of society. On a broad perspective of the issue, however, we believe that experiments with integrated programmes are urgently needed and that every effort should be made to enrol as many kids as possible in integrated programmes.
The Integrated Education of Disabled Children Scheme of 1974
In 1974, the Integrated Education of Disabled Children Scheme (IEDC) was developed by the Ministry of Welfare. With the aim of using these aids to include kids in regular classes, the programme offered financial assistance to kids with disabilities for things like books, school uniforms, transportation, special equipment, and aides. to enrol as many kids in integrated programmes as possible, which is very necessary.
The National Policy on Education of 1986 and its Plan of Action
In 1986, the National Policy on Education (NPE) was developed. According to the NPE, which is consistent with the 1974 IEDC, children with “minor” impairments should be taught in mainstream settings, whereas kids with “moderate to severe” disabilities should attend segregated schools. Many people were concerned that this approach went against Article 45 of the constitution, which states that everyone, not only those with “minor” impairments, had a basic right to equality in education.
Additionally, the policy stipulated that all instructors in mainstream education must have pre-service training that “includes an obligatory special education component.” Even though this strategy was established in 1986, it wasn’t put into action until the Plan of Action was established in 1992.
The 1986 definition of who should be included in mainstream education, that “a child with a disability who can be educated in the general school should not be in the special school,” is expanded in the 1992 Program of Action (PO), which was developed to execute the 1986 NPE.
It claims that children with disabilities should be mainstreamed once they have learnt the necessities of life, which would be taught in resource rooms or special schools. The POA doesn’t specify what counts as a basic set of life skills. Schools all around India were to “take responsibility by sharing their resources with other institutions,” according to the PO. Instead of including or even integrating children with disabilities into their programmes, these schools opened “resource centres for the underprivileged,” which offered to learn resources to kids with disabilities after regular school hours but not during the regular school day, effectively preventing their inclusion.
