The extent and practice of inclusion in independent schools in South Africa

Abstract

In line with international trends in education, South Africa has embraced inclusive education as the means by which learners who experience barriers to learning will be educated. As inclusion is beginning to be realised in South African schools, a gap in the em erging research base on inclusive education is that of inclusion in the independent sector. A study was undertaken to establish the extent to which learners who experience barriers to learning are included in independent schools belonging to ISASA (the largest independent schools association in South Africa) and the practices that facilitate inclusion. The results of a survey administered to principals were analysed quantitatively and reveal that most ISASA schools include learners who experience various barriers to learning and employ inclusive practices that are described in the international literature. We report on salient aspects emerging from the study and focus on the diversity of learners found in ISASA schools, as well as the inclusive practices found at school-wide, classroom, and individual levels. The practices described are the provision of on-site specialist personnel, support for teachers, building modifications to ensure access by persons using wheelchairs and various instructional practices and assessment adaptations. Recommendations arising from the study may give direction to South African schools pursuing inclusivity.

The State of Inclusive Pedagogy in South Africa: A Literature Review

“…In South Africa the development of barriers to learning were associated mostly with the intrinsic factors (internal) that is medical and disability models (Waltons 2006;Engelbrecht et al 2008). However there has been a paradigm shift in the way barriers to learning were conceptualized in South Africa, a shift from the understanding that specialized needs stem from the learner which often resulted in the identification and labeling of learners thus separating them from their peers (Pather 2007).…”

“…For example in their work Walton et al (2009) found in independent schools that inclusive teaching strategies that were applied often were cooperative learning, peer tutoring, modification of the assessments tasks to suit the needs of the learners, marking and spelling concessions and providing extra-time for learners with learning barriers. This could maybe be cited for the high academic results in independent schools though the same cannot be said about the public schools.…”

The progress of inclusive education in South Africa: Teachers’ experiences in a selected district, KwaZulu-Natal

“…' Mathibe (2007) observes that teachers' professional development needs to focus on giving them appropriate attitudes, knowledge, skills and values to perform their tasks well and resourcefully. This is even more critical in inclusive education where teachers need to know and understand what barriers to learning are, how to address them, as well as get hands-on training in classroom strategies that promote inclusion (Walton et al, 2009). This cannot be achieved using one-off training sessions as these have already been shown to be ineffective (Lessing and de Wit, 2007).…”

Creating a Living Curriculum

“…We are developing teachers to work in contexts that are ideal and do not exist for the majority -perhaps this is one reason why so many of our teachers become disillusioned and lose interest in teaching (Olivier & Wood 2007;Pretorius & De Villiers 2009). driven learning when they are faced with large classes, time constraints and many other barriers to effective learning that exist in our educational institutions (Walton, Nel, Hugo & Muller 2009). Drawing from my experience with HIV education, a critical pedagogical approach assumes that teachers have engaged both in critical selfreflection, and how they could engage learners to do the same.…”