It is the position of this paper that support for staff and students is imperative to the

promotion and implementation of inclusive education in the classroom (Loreman, 2007).

Improving the quality and amount of support that is available for educators and learners will

lead to social, academic, and financial benefits for schools and children involved in inclusive

education and can have a powerful effect on classroom outcomes. Moving towards an

inclusive school model will attract additional resources and result in the acquisition of

additional human and material resources for the benefit of all students (Loreman, 2007).

By shifting current learning environments into more inclusive spaces all children will

have the opportunity to access and participate in highly valuable education and obtain the

skills to become active members of a global community (Loreman & Forlin, 2014). The

Salamanca Statement (1994) posits that every child has a fundamental right to education;

every child has unique abilities and learning needs; education should cater for these

individual learning needs; and students with special educational needs should be able to

access mainstream schools with access to child centred pedagogy. The Salamanca Statement

endorsed the idea of inclusive education, calling for the need to reshape the ways our schools

approached the learning of diverse students with diverse needs. The conference, held in

Salamanca, Spain, has and continues to add to the development of policies and practices

surrounding inclusive education globally (Ainscow, Slee & Best, 2019). This statement has

led to further policy development such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of

Persons with Disabilities (2006) which sought to promote, protect and ensure the human

rights of all people with disabilities, and to promote respect their inherent dignity. Inclusive

education is a constantly evolving concern, in recent years this has culminated in the United

Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Guide for Ensuring

Inclusion and Equity in Education (2017), which highlights that ongoing development is

needed to minimise barriers to learning and ensure all learners experience inclusive

Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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education. In conjunction with this guide is the United Nations Sustainable Development

Goals (2015) (SDG), of which, SDG 4 aims to improve inclusivity and equitable quality

education and lifelong learning for all by 2030 including building and upgrading learning

facilities that are sensitive to the diversity of students, such as gender and disability diversity,

that are safe, inclusive and effective learning environments for all. The first argument of this

paper is that there is insufficient training for education staff, this lack of professional

development results in reduced quality and proliferation of quality education for all. The

second argument is that there is a lack of resources like assistive technology available to

educators and students that promote inclusive education environments.

Loreman (2007) purports that many teachers feel unprepared for the demands of

establishing inclusive pedagogy in their practice. McCrimmon (2014) highlights that teachers

must adjust their teaching methods to proactively confront the increasingly diverse student

population, particularly students with additional learning requirements. Where these needs

are not met, students are met with disadvantages and challenges to their learning that could

otherwise be avoided including a lack of necessary services and support. One example of this

is when students with particular learning requirements are placed into separate learning

environments from their typical mainstream peers. Initially this strategy was implemented to

meet the learning requirements of children with exceptional learning needs, placing them in

units with specially trained educators to support these learning requirements who were

deemed more capable than mainstream classroom educators. However, from this environment

of learning arose limitations to student outcomes particularly in confronting discriminatory

attitudes, opportunities for social and behavioural growth for students with diverse learning

needs, and the efficiency of education.

Starcic (2010) argues that the use of information and communication technology

(ICT) in inclusive education has fallen short of its potential to support diverse learning needs.

Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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Most classroom technology is designed for typical learners and does not cater for the wide

range of student capabilities and to people with disabilities. Contemporary discourse on

classroom inclusion has encouraged awareness of potential ICT applications for including

students with disabilities into the mainstream school environment, although evidence

indicates a lack of implementation of ICT for people with special educational needs.

McCrimmon (2014) suggests that a potential solution to the unpreparedness teacher’s

feel to confront inclusive education principles in their workplace is to augment curriculum in

university courses to include content that focuses on childhood disabilities and the learning

needs of these pupils. Alternatively, should this method prove difficult due to the already

high workload student’s face, specialised programs could be developed for current teachers to

provide the necessary inclusive teacher education that many educators feel is missing from

their training. These programs would focus on the primary features of childhood disorders

and the impacts of these features on their learning.

Starcic (2010) argues that educational technology and ICT facilitates adaptable and

effective, inclusive learning environments for all students, especially for those with special

education needs. There exist e-learning environments that teachers are not aware of that

increase the potential for creating individualised lesson planning, exploratory environments,

collaborative learning, improving social skills, and accommodating students with disabilities

within each classroom. The implementation of ICT in classrooms will prepare the more

marginalised members of society the skills they may potentially be lacking to exist within and

engage with a world outside the classroom that is becoming an increasingly online world of

interaction.

To assist pre-service and practicing teachers there needs to be mandatory, ongoing,

professional learning that supports teachers in establishing and maintaining inclusive

classrooms by giving them strategies to deliver in their practice and exploring theories behind

Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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the importance of inclusive learning environments for all learners. As mentioned, these

professional workshops should be mandatory for all teachers to complete throughout the

teaching year, online modules could be included to reduce the anxiety of an added workload

as well as face-to-face sessions by specialised inclusive educators. Mergler, Carrington,

Kimber & Bland (2016) denote the growing interest in the value of inclusive education in the

curriculum of pre-service teaching courses, notably, the impact of pre-service teachers’

values of the importance of upholding inclusive principals in their future classrooms. Mergler

et. al’s (2016) research highlighted that pre-service teachers are committed to enhancing

inclusive practices and value the positive difference inclusive teaching can make in students’

ability to become more aware of their own needs, abilities and goals. McCrimmon (2014)

reiterated the importance of teacher education programs that are accessible via online

teaching modes providing the example of postgraduate degrees in inclusive education offered

at some Canadian universities. This online mode of learning means it is accessible to

educators around the world, adding that the courses are run by experienced specialised

teachers of inclusive education and that the courses meet the rigorous standards of instruction

and student evaluation.

To promote the development of inclusivity in the classroom, ICT and inclusive

technologies needs to be utilised and experimented with more readily especially in an ever

evolving, technologically rich world in which students are expected to increasingly engage

with technology beyond the classroom and into the workforce and their communities. Perez

(2014) underpin the importance of educational technology as it could enable increased

accessibility of learning to a more diverse array of students including those with atypical

learning needs. Developing students’ ICT skills allows them to communicate their learning in

a multitude of media forms. ICT implementation also allows an extension of the regular

Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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school hours allowing students to access content in their own time or involve caregivers or

other professionals in course content.

This paper has explored some of the barriers to inclusive education in contemporary

classrooms including the anxieties teachers experience when practicing inclusivity in the

classroom as well as the realization that use of ICT in the schools is falling short of meeting

the learning needs of diverse cohorts of learners. Some suggestions to tackle these barriers

are raised, such as introducing more extensive inclusive curriculum to pre-service teaching

courses and exploring the ways ICT can improve learning outcomes for all students. This

paper also experiments with suggestions of including mandatory, ongoing professional

learning for current practicing teachers around inclusive education and practices and further

highlights the importance of ICT in supporting diverse learners. Once again, it is the position

of this paper that support for staff and students is imperative to the promotion and

implementation of inclusive education in the classroom. This support for staff can be

achieved through pre-service teacher education in inclusivity and through ongoing

professional development in the field. Support for students can be made through the

implementation of creative and enriching ICT literacy development which has positive

outcomes within and beyond the classroom context. Inclusive education is every teacher’s

responsibility, students rely on their educators to provide a learning environment that is

inclusive of all and leaves no student behind.

Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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 References

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Inclusive Education: Principles and Practices Assessment 2 – Essay Due: 27/03/20

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