Inclusive education requires everyone to get involved
Inclusive education is no longer just about the placement of learners with cognitive or physical impairments in mainstream classrooms. It has become a more holistic educational approach that seeks to also cater for learners’ diversity by increasing their participation and reducing exclusion within and from education.
Inclusivity in education is about transforming the school ethos to increase access for all learners, including marginalised or vulnerable groups, such as those from the LGBTQ community.
Inclusive education calls for all levels of society, government and education to respond to the diverse needs of learners and remove all barriers to their education.
Nurturing inclusion during the Covid-19 pandemic has faced additional challenges.
A recent report by the National Income Dynamics Study —
Coronavirus Rapid Mobile shows that an estimated 750000 school children in South Africa may have dropped out as a result of the pandemic.
Covid-19 has been harshly felt by poverty-stricken communities where there were not enough educational facilities and resources to accommodate learners online nor maintain hygiene protocols and social distancing.
Overcrowding has been a serious problem for years. The issue was not that there was a sudden need for social distancing, but that the government has failed to improve most educational facilities.
Schools in rural areas and townships, in particular, have long been kept at a “social distance” from development and improvement initiatives. Such schools have always had difficulties in ensuring the full inclusion of learners.
On top of the inadequate schooling infrastructure, there are people who insist on destroying and vandalising schools during service delivery and other protests. For example, during the #Releasezuma protests in Kwazulu-natal, about 32 schools are said to have been vandalised.
This will lead to further exclusion because there are inadequate alternative facilities.
Lack of parental involvement is also one of the major issues that makes it hard to ensure that inclusion takes place. This became even more apparent during the pandemic lockdowns.
Of course, a lot of parents are overworked by the capitalist system that requires them to work from the early hours till late in the day.
In addition, some parents were not privileged enough to access education themselves as a result of apartheid inequalities, therefore making it nigh impossible to help their children with schoolwork.
But it is disappointing that there are a lot of parents who do not seem at all bothered to help the educational progress of their children. At least they could discipline them to make it easier for educators to do their work.
Added to all this, society with its intolerance and ignorance, also tends to nullify and vilify people who do not identify themselves along heterosexual lines. Gay and lesbian people in many of our societies are deemed “demonic” or “unnatural” for being different from the norm. We do not often consider that some of them are school-going children struggling to find their place in the world.
There are educators guilty of making sexist jokes or remarks that condemn their existence. The stigmatisation cast on them negatively affects their self-esteem, confidence and ability to learn.
Furthermore, far too many girls are excluded from school because sanitary items are too costly.
Let me reiterate that it is the responsibility of every single individual in society to ensure the inclusion of pupils at schools.
The South African government should capacitate our public schooling system to make it resistant to social ills and future disasters, whether it be a pandemic or the results of climate change.
Parental involvement in their children’s learning should be encouraged by teachers and fellow parents and, lastly, the homophobic and patriarchal culture that exists in society should be rejected with the contempt it deserves.
There are a lot of parents who do not seem at all bothered to help the educational progress of their children