Charlotte McClain Nhalpo presentation abstract

Special education needs: Towards Inclusive Education.
Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo

The move towards of an inclusive education system in South Africa has been part of a broader policy agenda to integrate services to people with disabilities. At the heart of this has been the South African Constitution that entrenches the right to education as a fundamental human right and prohibits discrimination on the grounds of disability In addition  participation of people with disabilities in policy formulation has been robust and has contributed to ensuring inclusion.

However, in practice, inclusive education will require the development of appropriate support services at both a school and district level. My presentation will highlight some of the developments in relation to the paradigm shift from special schools to inclusive education and will also flag some of the constraints.

Over the past seven years, reform in education in a democratic South Africa has stimulated a commitment to the development of a single, inclusive system of education which has the capacity to provide for appropriate ways and means to facilitate learning and meet the needs of all learners, including those with disabilities in mainstream classrooms.

Not so long ago, it was assumed that learners with disabilities should be educated in special schools and that the predominant educational approach should be that these learners will not be successful in meeting traditional demands in mainstream classrooms.

However, the increasing demand to educate learners with disabilities in mainstream classrooms has been fraught with challenges. The lack of teachers prepared to provide quality inclusive teaching to these learners and the limitation of existing support structures both impact on inclusion. The education of learners with and without disabilities relies on the commitment and effective support of teachers. The result has been that in response, mainstream teachers see inclusive education as an additional burden and have raised concerns regarding the implementation of inclusive education.

In response to this, recent policy documents in South Africa are proposing support systems that are systemic in approach and focus on management and personnel support rather than providing direct face to face interventions for individual learners.