Inclusive education broadens students' perspective: Experts

The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Everyone has something to offer, that is one of the most valuable things a child can learn.

Raisa Aurora, a 13-year-old girl, wrote in her award-winning essay that she learned about truth and patience from her schoolmate who suffers from Down's syndrome, a congenital condition characterized by moderate to severe mental retardation and trisomy of the human chromosome numbered 21.

Her essay won first place in the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) 2005 writing competition.

Asih, the friend's name, is a 15-year-old girl who goes to a regular public junior high school. She is often teased by her schoolmates, Raisa wrote, but Asih had also taught them about values.

Although Raisa thinks Asih should go a special school, rather than being forced to contend with the taunts of other children, placing children with special needs in regular schools can be of benefit to them.

"Disabled children's psychological development will be better if they are included in a normal environment because they will feel no different to normal kids," education expert Arief Rachman told The Jakarta Post last week. "As for normal kids, they will learn to be more accepting".

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), announcing an inclusive education program at its Dakkar World Education Forum in 2000, defines such an approach as an effort to address the learning needs of all people, with a specific focus on those vulnerable to marginalization and exclusion.

The definition, therefore, places physically and mentally disabled children among those in need of having a normal learning environment.

The Ministry of National Education has developed the inclusive education program for children with mental and physical disabilities to ensure children's education rights.

Recent data shows that out of 1.5 million disabled school-aged children, only 52,000 have been accommodated in a total of 1,129 special schools here, including 224 state-run ones.

"The number is insufficient and building new special schools would be more expensive," said the ministry's director of special education, Mudjito.

The ministry provided Rp 5 million each to 504 regular schools now accommodating 2,750 disabled children, two years ago to hold campaigns for inclusive education.

The program, which cost Rp 10 billion of this year's state budget, was divided into full and integrated inclusion methods.

Full inclusion enables children to have full-classes in regular schools, while in integrated inclusion children interact with other students for certain subjects accompanied by a teacher.

Mudjito said the lack of facilitating schools, especially for children with mental disabilities, had contributed to the problem of disabled children discontinuing their studies.

"This program is more effective in building unconditional acceptance," he said.

According to him, building new schools is more expensive and not as effective.

Arief said that teachers needed to be properly trained before schools offered the programs.

A clear educational concept and mission, an adjusted curriculum -- according to what kinds of special needs are catered for in the school -- and the provision of special facilities for disabled children are other things that need to be factored in before a school is declared inclusive.

"A regency should have one or two inclusive schools that could accommodate disabled children in the area," Arief said.

Since the program is still in its introductory phase, the first thing that the government needs to do is to train teachers.

Later on, other groups who are vulnerable to marginalization should be considered in designing school programs. (003/005)