In order to create a cohesive community, inclusive education is needed. Education is a basic human right and a turning stone in the community's search for long-term prosperity. Education affects society, affects customs, and influences the degree of individual achievement. Education's instrumental position in societal transformation necessitates a comprehensive and multifaceted approach in order to create an all-inclusive, ethically constituted organization. Furthermore, schooling establishes a relational institution in which academics, teachers, and parents participate, shaping and reorganizing individual views, which form an alternative perception of how people confront life. Inclusive education creates equal opportunities for students with different backgrounds by providing solutions to the various challenges preventing students from attaining their objectives. Most importantly, the society is composed of multiracial and multi-ethnic communities, people with unique needs and economic abilities. The individual differences create a dissimilar environment for student development. As such, an inclusive education takes care of individual differences among students in order to facilitate learning. For better comprehension of the subject matter, there is need to define inclusive education. Inclusive education refers to a prototypical classroom where students with special needs (disabilities) and without learn together. The model incorporates both special education and general education teacher facilitating instruction in the same classroom. Collaborative and integrated teaching is primary requirements for the success of this type of educational model. The aim of this paper is to discuss the benefits and challenges of inclusive education to both students with and without special needs in creating Students with Special Needs Students have individual differences that determine their level and extent of participation in the educational process. Especially, inclusive education focuses on how to incorporate students with a various degree of disability into an ordinary learning situation. According to Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), disability refers to sustained mental, physical, sensory and intellectual impairments that in combination with other factors may inhibit full and equal participation in the society. The impairments range from insignificant to severe levels, which is responsible for categorization of students in inclusive schools. Students with unique needs learn either in self-contained classrooms or inclusion classrooms. Moreover, systemically sustainable programme must be provided as well (Maher 839). Sacks et al. suggested that students with moderate disabilities should learn in inclusive classroom while those with severe complications in self-contained rooms. Despite the fact that both the students with moderate and severe disabilities are categorized into one group, their individual needs tend to differ (Malakar and Polee 66). Inclusive schools design instructional processes that match their needs to reduce exclusivity in the learning process. Sacks et al., underscore that inclusive education emphasizes the right of all learners to access quality education despite their differences (560). All children have the right to quality education regardless of their differences, social classes, and background. Inclusive education increases the participation of children with special needs in education by meeting the diverse requirements of all students. Besides, in case of multicultural group, it boosts tolerance towards other communities and enhances cultural communication (Maher 842). Inclusive education assists in the early diagnosis of disability among children that are significant in designing the best instructional material to increase their participation in class. Best et al. states that students with disability need particular attention, assistive technology, and a friendly environment to elicit learning (1000). Assistive technology is significant in supporting students with hearing and visual impairments. Elements of Inclusive Education Inclusive education provides an elongated intervention aimed at providing academic, vocational, social and physical development to children with disabilities in a regular education system. Primary components of inclusive education include the indigenous teaching assistants, comprehensive curriculum and parental participation in education. These factors may be contemplated with non-indigenous teacher involvement for support (Maher 850). For effective inclusive education, special assistants work together with special and general education teachers to design programs that help in concretizing learning of abstract contents to enhance comprehension, participation, and retention (Malakar and Polee 67).Best et al. notes that teaching assistant is responsible for the integration of practical approaches in developing inclusive curriculum (1002). Inclusion in special education involves the participation of all stakeholders in the education system including the governments, teachers, parents, and students. Parental involvement is vital in monitoring and creating awareness on the achievements and limits of disabled students. Best et al. suggested that the participation of parents in the education of their children empowers them to understand developmental changes and early identification of disabilities, which enables them to provide adequate support and special treatment (1003). Moreover, collaborative support among key stakeholders in schools is significant in creating a healthy and learns. Children need stable emotional and physical health in order to succeed in school. A healthy learning environment should embrace diversity and meet the needs of both physically and mentally disabled children to nurture a high sense of responsibility, belonging and self-worth (Best et al. 1004). A good environment will enable the students to succeed therefore emphasizing careful observation of the principles of inclusive education. Principles of Inclusive Education The process of providing special education has guiding policies that lead to the success of the system in supporting learning among students with diverse backgrounds, marginalized groups, and special needs. Sacks et al. indicates that education systems are built on a conceptual framework and established guidelines that demonstrate intercontinental acknowledgment and sense of belonging for all apprentices (965). Similarly, its principles embrace diversity and individual differences thereby providing indiscriminate opportunities for all learners. The tenets create a value-based and learner-oriented approach in actions and practices at each stage of learning (Witzel and Ben 215). First, inclusive education appreciates and supports diversity and individual differences in learners. Salend suggest that high level of responsibility, respect for individual’s unique features and safe learning environment are the primary guidelines in inclusive education (6). Indeed, it creates a sense of togetherness and belonging for all students. Secondly, inclusive education recognises the ability of learners to actualise their potentials to achieve life ambitions. In spite of the individual differences, learners do have high expectations and value attached to their education. Therefore, the education system establishes significant and relevant learning experiences that exceed learner’s expectation. Instructors believe that the application of need tailored instructional material in classroom learning stimulates students’ efforts and results to great achievements. The success of students, both regular and special students are dependent on the appropriate instructional materials and not their personal limitations (Witzel and Ben 216). Thirdly, inclusive education assesses learners’ needs, strengths, and weaknesses through data collection and analysis. Available literature on individual students helps teachers, parents and educational agency to generate curriculum instructional materials that address individual needs while building on the strengths (Witzel and Ben 217). Instructional process is an elaborate and extensive facilitation of learning which must match the students’ needs to increase content comprehension and retention. Students’ background analysis is instrumental in inclusive education as it assists in proper placement and categorization of students based on the level of ability and needs thereby developing contents that are relevant to their level (Witzel and Ben 218). Besides, inclusive education eliminates social, psychological and physical barriers in an educational environment. Teachers and the government work collaboratively in deconstructing any form of barriers within the education system, which limits students’ ability to self-actualization. Together with the elimination of barriers, inclusive education embraces capacity building. Educators, parents, communities, and professionals have sustainable relationships and utilization of resources to regenerate understanding and ability to establish learning responsive environment. Therefore, capacity building is a continuous process that starts from the family and extends to and beyond schools. Salend argued that capacity building creates high sense of shared responsibility among educational stakeholder ranging from families, schools, teacher preparation to government obligation to ensure the success of all learners irrespective of their unique backgrounds and features (10). The above principles are instrumental in developing instructional programs, creation of learner-friendly environment by constructing disability friendly essential utilities, capacity building as well as embracing diversity among students. These principles determine the extent of effectiveness and relevance of an inclusive educational system. Contrastingly, effective application of these principles may create benefits to learners while inefficient use may generate challenges as discussed below. Benefits of Inclusive Education Inclusive education is the best approach used in teaching students with unique needs in a similar environment. Collaborative team teaching (CTT) and integrated co-teaching (ICT) facilitate better understanding among students. An inclusive class has two teachers; where one is a special education teacher while the other a general teacher. The combination of two teachers with diverse experiences has increased the level of students’ engagements thereby making learning more effective. As such, inclusive education is very instrumental in learning among students with disability. Firstly, parents can accomplish the need for routine life for their children. An inclusive environment increases social interactions among students irrespective of their differences. Therefore, children with disability can associate with other students, which lead to formation of friendship. Salend confirms that all parents desire to see their children prosper irrespective of their personal limitations (9). In fact, Sandhu argues that nature has internal compensation for any form of disability and that students with special have advanced innate intellectual abilities than ordinary students (422). He also suggests that children are born free of any limitation, but the society brands them identities (424). Retrogressive personalities create a sense of inferiority among children with disability and a belief that there exist lesser standards for people with disabilities. Inclusive education resolves this identity crisis by creating an inclusive educational environment where students can achieve their fullest potential and live like other ordinary students. Secondly, inclusive education enables students to understand their capabilities and limits. Students get to recognize their differences, strengths, and weaknesses. Moreover, inclusivity enables the regular students to comprehend the challenges faced by students with a disability, which increases their understanding. Sandhu identified that lack of understanding and acceptance students was responsible for low self-esteem (425). However, the interaction between children with diverse abilities in classes, co-curricular activities and outside school instill respect, love, and trust, which is a positive step towards empowering disabled children. Intrinsically, better understanding enables children to live harmoniously in school and develop positive social skills that are essential for an inclusive society. The long-term goal of inclusive education is to empower children academically and improve their social skills. Thirdly, inclusive education has academic gains. Sandhu accentuated that students with disability can learn just like other ordinary students if the instructional materials are designed to match their immediate needs (426). Special students are able to learn reading, writing and mathematical skills. Through collaborative teaching, special education teacher is able to integrate simulation programs into a typical classroom setup to improve learning of languages and mathematical skills. This method further ensures that any discriminative actions are eliminated and the students participate in the process on equal terms (Michailakis 38). The mixed classroom environment creates a spirit of competition in learning that leads to the development of higher expectations. Likewise, with the well-designed instructional program, students with disability are able to acquire academic skills. Besides, inclusive class creates a similar environment for all students that create teamwork among students that enable the gifted, weak and disabled students to learn together and support one another. Group work establishes unity among students that enables them to work together towards actualizing their potentials. This setting creates a conducive learning environment where the students are willing to participate in discussions and activities (Priya 192). Fourthly, inclusive education befits normal students more than those with disability. According to Şenay and Sarı, inclusive education exposes students to challenges that their peers with disability face (1550). The experience enables them to understand, support, appreciate and accept diversity among students. They learn to interact with disabled students who possess divergent skills and abilities thereby assisting them to achieve academic success. The inclusive classroom also prepares students to encounter future life challenges in the society and find amicable solutions to their problems. Şenay and Hakan argue that education does impart not only academic skills to learners but also other life skills that form reasoning and shape opinions (1560). Concisely, education is what remains in an individual’s several years after completing the schooling process (Witzel and Ben 219). Moreover, inclusive education enhances parental participation in learning. Şenay and Hakan stated that parental involvement in education enables them to monitor the progress of their children, identify behavioral changes, potentials, achievements and limits (1560). In addition, parents learn to appreciate diversity and provide infrastructural, financial and moral support to their children with special needs. The role of parents in the development of a child is instrumental in determining the kind of personality that their children develop. A supportive and a caring attitude inculcate good morals and habits in children (Malakar and Polee 64). Parents are the immediate role models for their children and need to monitor their progress carefully in order to encourage learning and reinforce positive behavior. Nonetheless, achieving full inclusion of children with disability in education is characterized by some challenges as discussed below. Challenges of Inclusive Education Despite the significant benefits that inclusive education presents to learners with special needs, some problems limit its application. According to Malakar and Polee, the construction of the educational infrastructure requires additional financial resources that may not be available (65). Inadequate funding by the government has restricted the construction of adequate learning facilities and support infrastructure. For instance, physically disabled students are not able to use stairways making mobility within educational institutions challenging. Besides, the classrooms are not adequate to support the increasing number of students. Malakar and Polee note that the global population is rapidly increasing while the capacity of educational institutes’ remains limited (68). The limited capacity of learning centers locks some needy students outside the system thereby breaching the fundamental rights of all children to quality education. Furthermore, collaborative team teaching (CTT) requires additional human resource to sustain the program. Inadequate resources limit hiring additional teachers to support the program. On the other hand, the increasing number of students creates pressure on the available human resource to serve all the diverse needs of the students. In the process of adjusting to the increasing demand for education and limited human resources to provide the services, quality of education and extent of learner participation in the classroom is compromised thereby reducing the effectiveness of the program. Inadequate teacher preparation due to many classes may lead to teacher ineffectiveness in class as well as exhaustion. In addition, inadequate resources and teacher assistants’ support lower a teacher’s confidence in facilitating learning among students in inclusive classrooms. Additionally, inadequate teacher training lowers self-esteem to facilitate learning inclusive classrooms. Regular education teachers find it difficult or challenging to teach students with disability. There exist a great concern on the practicability and effectiveness of teaching general classes. The presences of two teachers working simultaneously in an inclusive classroom may disrupt attention and lower their concentration. Şenay and Hakan noted that some teachers have negative belief and attitude towards inclusive education due to limited resources and professional competency (1566). Communication in general classes may be a challenge if required resources are not available. For instance, inadequacy of special education teachers may compromise learning of deaf, deaf-dumb, and blind students. However, it is important to note that the challenges facing inclusive education can be improved through the following measures. Ways to Improve Inclusive Education Inclusive education plays a pivotal role in transforming society by empowering disabled children. Education is a fundamental right of all students in spite of their differences. To make inclusive education successful, the following measures are necessary. The government should guarantee sufficient training of educators and provision of resources that support children with diverse needs. Ensure proper funding of early childhood education for full implementation of inclusive activities. Sensitise parents on the need for inclusive education for the development of their children. Educate the public on the importance of parental involvement in the education of their children. Encourage collaborative responsibility in ensuring the effectiveness of inclusive education that benefits both gifted and non-gifted students. The government should constitute indiscriminate legislations that support inclusion at all sectors of the economy not only in schools but also in government appointments. Conclusion Inclusive education is essential in supporting learning among students with special needs. This paper has investigated the principles of inclusive education, its benefits, challenges, and ways through which it can be improved. Inclusive education plays a significant role in shaping the lives of students with disability and the perception that other students have about disabled peers. The paper has established that inclusive education is significant towards creating an inclusive society. Collaborative and integrated teaching is primary requirements for the success of this type of educational model. However, there is a need for further research on the sustainability of inclusive education institutions with the increasing number of admissions. Therefore, inclusive education provides a basis for realizing their opportunities by students of different shades of needs and offers solutions to the different issues preventing them from achieving their goals.
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