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While several prevailing values about disability are themselves disenabling (Zammit 2009), negative public attitudes are one of the biggest obstacles to meaningful inclusion into mainstream community life (Barnes 1997) and education. The inclusion model of special education argues that every child has the right to education irrespective of their disability/learning difficulty. Inclusive practice entails that children learn together in schools irrespective of their neuro- diversities. The Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action (1994) states that

The fundamental principle of the inclusive school is that all children should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any difficulties or differences they may have. Inclusive schools must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of their students, accommodating both different styles and rates of learning and ensuring quality education to all through appropriate curricula, organizational arrangements, teaching strategies, resource use and partnerships with their communities. There should be a continuum of support and services to match the continuum of special needs encountered in every school.

A publication by the Open University (2005) proposes that

Inclusive education goes beyond integration – a term which, until the late 1990s, was generally used to describe the process of repositioning a child or groups of children in mainstream schools. Today inclusive education implies a radical shift in attitudes and a willingness on the part of schools to transform practices in pupil grouping, assessment and curriculum. The notion of inclusion does not set boundaries around particular kinds of disability or learning difficulty, but instead focuses on the ability of the school itself to accommodate a diversity of needs.

McAnaney, (2007) proposes that if we treat people differently and educate them in a parallel system, they will develop differently and never fully integrate into the mainstream of society and society will always view them as different and

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stigmatised. The shift from ‗integration‘ to ‗inclusion‘ is not simply a shift in terminology, made in the interests of political correctness, but rather a fundamental change in perspective. It implies a shift away from a ‗deficit‘ model, where the assumption is that difficulties have their source within the child, to a

‗social‘ model, where barriers to learning exist in the structures of schools

themselves and, more broadly, in the attitudes and structures of society. Our knowledge and understanding of academic success and failure, and ability and disability can be considered as cultural constructions (Carrier 1990). This is because the dominant group in a society define the features of the culture that

differentiate ‗those who can‘ and ‗those who can‘t‘ where cultural understandings

of difference are reflected not only in the beliefs and attitudes of people, but also in the reactions and behaviour of individuals (Gliedman et al. 1980). The inclusive model brings to focus the roles attitudes, systems and services (or the lack of them) play in creating disability (McAnaney, 2007).

Learners with disabilities and chronic medical conditions often require support to cope with the academic demands of their courses. On close observation one will notice that these educational needs are related to the learning environment rather than the disability itself. Oliver (1996) notes that it is not individual limitations, of whatever kind, which are the cause of the problem, but rather society‘s failure to provide appropriate services and adequately ensure the needs of disabled people are fully taken into account in its social organisation. Some critics have seen the focus on students with disabilities and difficulties in learning as distracting from the real issue, that is, the processes of inclusion and exclusion that leave many

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students, not simply those with disabilities, unable to participate in mainstream culture and communities (Booth, 1996).

The democratic classroom is one that seeks to embrace all stakeholders in the dialogue to create a new curriculum (Fisher 2007). However, attitudes about inclusion are extremely complex and vary from teacher to teacher and school to school (Fakolade, et al. 2009). Failure to accommodate the environmental and accessibility needs of persons with disabilities in the society will inevitably inhibit their participation in educational, social, recreational and economic activities (Harkness and Groom, 1976; Steinfeld et al.1977).Ajuwon (2008) argues

It is not sufficient for government officials to merely endorse international protocols of special needs education that have not been adequately researched or tested in developing countries. Ideas and strategies about the best way to educate children, especially those with disabilities in developing countries, are generally influenced by external rather than internal circumstances. This is largely due to the historical ties between the developed and developing countries, the open door policy that characterises the educational system of developing countries, and the impact international development agencies continue to exert on recipients of funds and services.

It is this type of relationship that has shaped Nigeria‘s policy on education over

the years, and is clearly reflected in the newly-revised National Policy on Education with its focus on inclusive education of children and youth with special needs in ordinary schools (National Policy on Education, 2008). The National Policy on Education document, among other things, calls for access of special needs children, with their varying abilities, to education in conducive and less restrictive environments, as well as the education of such children to enable them to achieve self-fulfilment.

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