Modelling Inclusive Education in Rural Schools

20.2 Overview Of Inclusive Education In The African Context

The general overview of inclusive education in the African context does not differ much from that of other parts of the world. However, it appears more emphatic on empowering individuals to realise how connected there are despite their differences. Mangope (2017) describes inclusive education as the process of strengthening the capacity of the general education system to be sensitive to the needs of all learners. Its vision being to achieve universal access to education by all children despite the differences in their abilities and disabilities. This entails taking a proactive stance in identifying the barriers which might be experienced in the quest to access educational opportunities and identifying the needed resources to mitigate those barriers. Themane and Thobejane (2019) also opine that, inclusive education strives to transform the entire education system to a point where every learner is effectively accommodated.

Jacob and Olisaemeka (2016) describe inclusive education as involving the placement of learners with different levels of disabilities in regular classes. The belief is that regular schools are an effective platform to combat discrimination through the creation of welcoming environments for the building of inclusive communities. This includes children who might have been discriminated as a result of gender, poverty, ethnicity, religion, disability and other forms of inequalities (Gutuza & Mapolisa, 2015; Mphahlele, 2017 & Narayan & Patnaik, 2020). Pantić and Florian (2015) maintain that inclusive education concerns the participation of all learners in the same curriculum of an ordinary school with mutual respect of learning differences.