Inclusive education in Nepal

Inclusive education is globally accepted as a movement of educational reform in order to establish universally accessible and quality education system that supports to address the problems of exclusion in education.Along with global community, The Government of Nepal also committed to ensure universal quality education and adopted principles of inclusion in education to promote overall education system.Despite the various provisions of inclusive education at policy level, many children in Nepal still remained out of school, among those who come to school, many children leave school before completing primary education and many children suffers from lower learning achievement as well as class repetition.Keeping these concerns in background, this study has aimed to explore the actual situation of inclusive education in Nepal.The intent of this study was to dig out the problems perceived by school teachers to translate the ideals and values of inclusive education in classroom.The convergence parallel design was used as a research method and information were collected through multiple tools namely documents, questionnaires, observation and interview.Seventy five school teachers from fifteen schools were participated and filled questionnaire forms, four classroom teaching were observed, and four children with hard of hearing problem were interviewed in order to obtain desired information.The field data were analyzed, presented and discussed in a descriptive way on the basis of different dimensions of inclusive education.The findings of this study clears that theoretically inclusive education in Nepal is grounded on the human right perspective.Although the Government has made different provisions of inclusive education at policy level, the practice of inclusive pedagogy in classroom was found less effective.The practice of inclusive education is affected by multiple factors such as lack of effective teachers, less inclusive culture in the school, weak coordination between community and school, and limited financial resources of the schools.Among those factors which are responsible in less effective practice of inclusive education, the negative attitude of II Abstract the teachers and parents towards disability was found very critical that demands the change of attitude that respect disability and diversity.Similarly, other social factors such as social values and the belief system, resource constraints, ignorance of children with disabilities are equally responsible in least effective practice of inclusive education in classroom.Additionally, the findings of this study has showed that the general schools in Nepal have lack of culture of inclusion as they have traditionally oriented school organization, lack of dynamic leadership and weak resource mobilization.The situation of children with disability in general school was also found very critical as they are ignored by school teachers, peers and other school's staff as well as disadvantaged from assistive services.On the basis of findings from multiple data sources used in this study, this study has concluded that there is clear and visible gap between policy provisions and its practice as well as between knowledge of teachers on inclusive education and the application of this knowledge in classroom teaching.In other word, the study has clearly demonstrated the 'implementation gaps' regarding inclusive education in Nepalese context.As most of the teachers in general school perceived the various problems that are originated from the social structure and negative attitude to practice of inclusive education, this study has recommended 'cultural transformation of school' in collaboration with the local community as key strategy to steer the culture of inclusion in schools that ultimately supports to promote the effective practice of inclusive education in Nepal.