KARACHI, May 13: Experts representing city government education and psychiatry departments called for educating all children together regardless of their varying capabilities and assured that it would help them develop a tolerant and healthy society.
They were speaking at a seminar on “Understanding the rationale for inclusive education” organized by Pakistan Press Foundation on Thursday evening.
The experts said that the inclusive education was a relatively new concept of education in Pakistan and the system supporters believe that interaction of children of varying capabilities in a classroom would help them develop a tolerant and understanding approach and combat discriminatory attitudes leading to a healthy society.
Moreover, they said that the system would provide education to majority of children and improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the entire education system.
Debbie Kramer-Roy of the Pakistan Association for Inclusive Education of Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development said that the relatively new system of education involved all students contrary to those institutions providing education either to normal or special children separately.
She said that children with disabilities or special needs had the right to receive schooling in mainstream along with their same-age peers. She added that inclusive education recognized that all children could learn and teaching must cater to individual strengths and needs in order to meet their full potential.
“Disabilities of either kind - physical or mental - should not restrict provision of normal treatment to such special children,” she said adding that special schools often breed sense of alienation among students, who were already victims of unpleasant social attitudes.
Recognizing that inclusion of inclusive education in academic system of the country was hard and uphill task, she said that turn-around of school’s environment and policies was required in Pakistan.
Citing high cost of special facilities, Ms Roy said that constituting a combined system was cheaper and work in two ways, as it taught special children how to survive in society and normal students to be tolerant.
EDO Higher Education Prof (Dr) Muhammad Rais Alvi, said that government was seriously engaged in developing an education system, which would cater to needs of all students. He said that the government was considering including all categories of disabled children into the mainstream system.
The city government was still following special schools concept, but after realizing what was required, other options were also being considered.
According to him, the present education system does take into account, the needs of disabled students, such as providing extra time or writers to them during examinations and placing them in convenient examination centres. Changing the system to provide education to all in need-based way is not an easy task, but continuous deliberations on part of government can make changes in future.
Muhammad Iqbal, principal of an institution, offering inclusive education, said that main reason behind inclusive studies was economical and social sufferings of special children and their parents.
He said that parents were often reluctant to send their special children with normal students. “We are trying to bridge gap but not in perfect possible way,” he noted saying that a lot of work needed to be done.
On psychological aspect of the system, JPMC’s psychiatry department head Dr Musarrat Hussain said that excluding children from mainstream systems could create a sense of alienation in children with disabilities. — PPI
