they must be monitored constantly and closely, to ensure that the instruction is effective and continues to meet their needs. If this does not take place, inclusive education cannot be successfully implemented at school level (Wood, 2002:179,191).
Stofile and Green (2007:57) highlight the following challenges to inclusive education in South Africa: the conceptual and practical integration of inclusive education agenda with Curriculum 2005, the development of teacher capacity, the development of all role players‟ capacity for collaboration, addressing current teacher morale and attitudes, rethinking training and development for inclusion, and the current physical and psycho-social environment in many schools.
Inclusive education tends to be seen by teachers as an extra burden. This is partly due to the structure of training workshops that fail to illustrate the link between inclusive education and the new curriculum.
District administrators should realise that maintaining separate budgets for general and special education cannot be cost-effective (Wood, 2002:168). The Education Labour Relations Council Integrated Report (2005) shows that the morale of teachers in South Africa is generally low. This report shows that 71% of teachers say that this is due to stress with OBE – while 62% claim that they have too-high workloads.
The dream of addressing the needs of all learners will never become true, if teachers are unable to implement the curriculum effectively (Stofile and Green, 2007: 59).
The report of the National Commission on Special Needs in Education and Training and the National Committee on Education Support Services suggests that in an inclusive education and training system, the curriculum needs to be transformed to accommodate the diversity in the learner profile (Stofile and Green, 2007:59). This would provide access to education for all learners. The challenge is to do this in a coherent and integrated manner, and in such a way that teachers will bring their new skills into the process.
In addition to the above, Wood (2002:168) states that teachers, parents, administrators, related-services personnel, counsellors, students and the school community must accept and share the responsibility to provide equal educational opportunities to all students, regardless of their diversity. Farrell (2004:28) further pointed out that school‟s written policies on equal opportunities often include references to equality and discrimination, and statements asserting that the school seeks to offer equal opportunities to all pupils.
This stated commitment to equal opportunities may refer to groups of pupils who are without special care. Therefore, the danger is that they may not receive equal opportunities.
These groups include girls, boys and pupils from different ethnic minority groups. Great care should be taken to include these groups of people on an equality basis.
Special and regular teachers should strive to acknowledge that they have specialised skills, but that their experience, values, and knowledge bases may differ, and that they have to share their interest in the learner‟s educational process, and help each other by sharing their expertise with one another (Wood, 2002:170).
In this regard, Stofile and Green (2007:57), stated that teachers are performing many roles at school; these include being a parent, counsellor, minister and social worker. The reality is that the majority of teachers were not trained for these roles.
Many teachers do not know how to address the diverse needs of learners, but as stated, they can learn from others who have the expertise and are willing to share it. The onus is now on them to show whether they are willing to learn from other teachers‟ experiences and expertise.
Therefore, an inclusive education system can only flourish when mainstream teachers accept the role of lifelong learners as teachers in their profession, and take on new responsibilities (Johnson and Green, 2007:163).
In addition, the special and general teacher should strive to:
Realise that no classroom teacher can devote the majority of his/her time to any one student for long.
Recognise that teaching techniques or programmes that may be a success in a separate special education class may not be appropriate for the general classroom environment.
Understand that teachers in regular classrooms must respond to the needs of many students rapidly.
Acknowledge that placing a student with special needs in a general classroom does not relieve that teacher of any responsibilities to the other students.
Understand that it is unlikely that a new intervention strategy or instructional approach will have an immediate effect, and that a fair trial must be given before a technique is judged to be ineffective.
Acknowledge that all students differ, according to the instructional accommodations they need (Wood, 2002:170).
The challenge is to take forward the amount of good practice that already exists. To be able to do this, there needs to be:
A wider agreement about what we mean by inclusion, and the features which make a school inclusive.
Clear leadership and commitment to meeting the needs of all pupils, which involves systems for meeting Special Educational Needs being part of other school systems, and not separate from them.
Emphasis on team working, shared responsibility, shared planning between mainstream and specialist staff, and the sharing of good practice.
Evaluation of schools which celebrate inclusive education and academic standards.
More rigorous self-evaluation with greater clarity on the roles played by all parties.
A move away from statements of Special Educational Needs towards more flexible funding (Blamires and Moore, 2002:31).
The challenge of and struggle for inclusive education involves an identification, challenge and removal of all forms of barriers to participation, including social, cultural, ideological and physical factors (Daniels and Garner, 2000:58-59). Inclusive education is considered the best strategy for addressing the diverse needs of learners in South Africa. The implementation of this policy is a challenge in terms of
the resources needed, and the timeframe available, but is worthwhile considering all the benefits for schools and learners (Stofile and Green, 2007:63).
2.19 SUMMARY
In this chapter, a literature review on inclusive education and the educational policies that have been implemented since 1994 in South Africa were discussed.
In addition, the definitions, reasons and implementation of inclusive education were also discussed. The effect that inclusive education has on the learner with barriers to reading and the teacher teaching the learner in an inclusive setting, were also pointed out in this study.
In addition, in this chapter, the need for a systems approach and how it influences the different systems has been clearly demonstrated. The importance of an Institutional-Level Support Team at school-level and the District-Based Support Team supporting the Institutional-Level Support Team has also been highlighted.
Furthermore, the importance of using collaboration when teaching, as well as the concerns and support around inclusive education, Educational Support Services, Challenges to inclusive education were all fully discussed.
According to Stofile and Green (2007:60), inclusive education is the new reality in South Africa, and it involves a philosophical shift, as indicated in this chapter, towards teachers teaching learners in an inclusive setting and performing the central role in the successful implementation of inclusive education. Furthermore, they stated that teachers are performing many roles at school. These include being a parent, counsellor, minister and social worker (Stofile and Green, 2007:57).
The reality is that the majority of teachers have not been trained for these roles. Many teachers do not know how to address the diverse needs of learners, but can learn from others who have the expertise, and are willing to share it.
The onus is now on to them to demonstrate whether they are willing to learn from other teachers‟ experiences and expertise – and with the necessary support provided by the Department and other stakeholders, to make a success of inclusive education.
The Education White Paper 6 (Special Needs Education, Building an Inclusive Education and Training System) outlined a twenty-year term for implementing inclusive education in all mainstream schools. The end of this year would be the ninth year of implementing inclusive education in schools all over South Africa. Major changes have been achieved through these policies, as mentioned in this chapter. I believe more schools will jump on the successful “inclusive education wagon” in the eleven years that still lie ahead.
The next chapter will deal with the literature review on reading problems, their causes and manifestations.
CHAPTER 3