Teachers’ Awareness about Inclusive Education in Punjab: A Descriptive Enquiry

Amjad Islam Amjad, Amjad Islam Amjad, Shah Syed Manzar-Abbas

Abstract


Inclusive education (IE) is part of today’s world agenda and is a relatively new concept for Pakistani teachers. The aim of the study was to explore teachers’ level of awareness about inclusive education. A descriptive survey was designed to investigate the phenomenon. A self-tailored questionnaire was distributed to 37 standalone public secondary schools (1-10 classes). Sampled for the study was selected by using multi-method, multi-stage sampling techniques from tehsil Chunian of district Kasur (Punjab). Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse data. Study revealed that teachers’ overall awareness about IE was at moderate level. Their awareness about the importance of implementing IE was at higher level, but their awareness about policies and projects related to IE was at lower level. Surprisingly, 67.8% participants had no knowledge about the term of IE. Almost all the teachers never participated in any workshop/seminar related to IE (98.9%). Almost, all the teachers (99.5%) never got any training to teach inclusive students. The study recommended that a massive awareness campaign may be launched in schools. Refresher courses or workshops may be conducted to train teachers about the concept and importance of inclusive education and a special and separate policy for IE was suggested to be formulated.

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