What do you think about South Africa’s policy on inclusive education?
From the outset, I would like to emphasise that the main purpose of my visit was to deliver a series of lectures, not to evaluate South Africa’s progress on inclusive education. However, I am happy to make some tentative comments based on my observations and the opportunity to meet with several hundred educators.
South Africa has one of best inclusive education policies in the world. It is comprehensive, enlightened, up to date and well planned. It is the only country I have encountered where there are directorates of inclusive education at the national and provincial levels. I particularly like the commitment to a single, rather than a dual, education system, the focus on learners experiencing barriers to learning and development, and the policy on district-based and institution-based support teams.
In my contacts with educators throughout the country I observed a high level of commitment to the principles of inclusion. However, many people I had contact with noted that there are barriers to implement the policy. These include:
- lack of coordination among government departments and NGOs;
- large and crowded classrooms;
- a one-size-fits-all curriculum;
- the linguistic and cultural diversity of learners in many classrooms;
- conservative attitudes among some educators and parents;
- inadequate training of teachers, many of whom have low self-esteem resulting from ‘reform fatigue”;
- lack of support staff;
- inaccessible buildings;
- inflexible assessment and teaching methods;
- lack, or uneven, distribution, of resources; and
- rigid matriculation examination systems.
You visited six of South Africa’s nine provinces — Gauteng, Limpopo, North West, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. What was your general impression of South Africa’s education system?
In this, my first visit to South Africa, I was struck by the great diversity in quality of buildings, class size and income levels. The enormous challenge posed by the devastating impact of HIV/Aids was something quite beyond my experience.
Equally, I was impressed by the obvious signs of progress being made in education towards creating a more democratic and equitable society. Inclusive education will play a key role in this endeavour.
You also visited a number of full-service schools and special schools. What was your impression of these institutions?
Although I only visited a small number of schools, I had discussions with many principals and teachers. Since they are in early stages of implementation, it would be inappropriate to make any judgements.
However, I do like the philosophies underpinning full-service schools and special schools as resource centres and I am pleased to see that they are being field-tested before being rolled out on a wider basis. Given the above, the following comments are somewhat tentative.
With regard to special schools as resource centres, South Africa is ahead of most countries. The success of the programme will critically depend on the skills of special school teachers to be able to provide appropriate guidance to teachers in full service schools. From my limited observations, I consider that not all special school teachers have the potential to fulfil this demanding role. Another point of concern is the physical distance between many special schools and their full-service schools. This raises issues to do with the availability and costs of transport, both for learners and educators. A related point is how specialised equipment, which is currently centralised in special schools, can be made available to full-service schools. I am sure that logistical problems such as these will be identified and solutions developed during the current field tests. A major implementation challenge is how to ensure that learners in isolated (usually poor) communities can obtain equitable access to resources.
You addressed education officials at various levels of government, teachers, politicians. Did you have a key message/s for them?
Inclusive education is much more than simply placing learners with barriers to learning and development in regular classes. Rather, it requires a ‘suite” of educational provisions, which I summarised in the following ‘formula”: IE = P + 5As + V + S + R + L. This means: IE= inclusive education; P = placement in regular classes; 5As = adapted curriculum, adapted assessment, appropriate teaching, accepting attitudes and access; V = vision, S = support, R = resources, and L = leadership. All of these components must be present throughout the system if inclusive education is to be implemented successfully.
I would emphasise that inclusive education benefits other marginalised or disadvantaged learners. Indeed, all learners stand to benefit.
In your opinion are there any areas that we can improve on or need to adapt in the policy? In other words, what shortcomings does it have?
A major and immediate challenge is to bring the 250 000 (estimates vary) learners with disabilities who are ‘out of school” into the education system and to effectively provide for them in the schools. This will require developing ways of identifying these learners and persuading their parents to enrol them in schools.
Another major challenge is to ensure that all teacher education programmes include a significant component on inclusive education. In turn, this means that lecturers in training institutions themselves will need significant professional development.
Educationally speaking, was there any one thing that you saw or experienced or heard that you took home and that you will remember?
I take away from my visit a great admiration for the way in which the South African education system is giving high priority to addressing barriers to learning and development, including those that arise from disabilities. Given the other demands that are being made on resources in South Africa, I am deeply impressed by this commitment to equity.
Teachers, parents, schools, the media battle to accept inclusive education. What do you tell the sceptics? Why go the inclusive education route?
Scepticism towards inclusive education is by no means limited to South Africa, but it is, I believe, a minority view in most countries. My response is to argue that inclusive education is:
- Economically desirable. It increases the likelihood that learners with disabilities will become full members of society with less likelihood of being dependent on families and the state. Furthermore, it is far too expensive to provide special schools for all these learners.
- Educationally feasible and effective. Research shows that inclusive education can successfully be implemented. It also shows that it benefits learners with special educational needs who gain academically and socially. And other learners gain an appreciation of the diversity of their society, a greater recognition of social justice and equality, and a more caring attitude.
- Above all, it is morally imperative. All children have a right to an appropriate education and learners with special educational needs have a right to be educated alongside their peers who do not have special needs.
Generally speaking, what are the greatest pitfalls in terms of creating a truly inclusive educational system?
In my experience, even though the majority of educators and parents are in favour of inclusive education, significant minorities of both groups are cautious or are even resistant to the idea. This arises from such factors as a concern that students with special needs will not receive enough attention (or the converse, that they will receive too much attention, at the expense of other learners); a concern that regular teachers lack the skills to teach learners with disabilities; a lack of specialist support for teachers; and fear among special school teachers that they will lose their jobs. Addressing these challenges will require adequate resourcing, high-impact teacher training (at both the pre- and in-service levels), and the setting up of successful pilot schemes. I must emphasise, however, that the challenge to South Africans is to make inclusive education work within the resources you have.
What advice can you give to teachers to come to grips with the challenges of inclusive education?
Learners with special educational needs simply require good teaching. With some exceptions (the use of Braille with blind learners and signing with deaf learners), there is little evidence to support the notion of disability-specific teaching strategies. Rather, all learners benefit from a common set of strategies, even if they are adapted to take account of varying cognitive, emotional and social capabilities. What is required is a systematic, explicit and intensive application of a wide range of effective teaching strategies — day-by-day, minute-by-minute — in classrooms. In a book I am working on, I will be describing 35 such teaching practices that have been thoroughly tested with learners with special educational needs. (What really works in special and inclusive education: Using evidence-based teaching strategies will be published in mid 2007.)
Dr David Mitchell is the Research Director at the Waikato Institute of Technology in New Zealand