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10ПЕДАГОГИЧЕСКИЕ НАУКИ
_INCLUSIVE EDUCATION AND GEORGIAN SOCIETY
Darejan Geladze
Batumi State University, Department of Education, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Department of Pedagogical Sciences
Batumi, Georgia
ABSTRACT
Over the 150 million Children worldwide live with disabilities. Special needs in the classroom was developed to assist countries and practitioners to adopt more inclusive strategies for responding to children's special learning needs in regular schools and to support regular teacher education. From this point of view Georgia must not be the exception. The aim of this research is to research the attitude and readiness of Georgian society towards inclusive education. The method of research was interviewing and observation of children with disabilities, their classmates, teachers and parents. After analyzing the above information it came out that most of Georgian society, exactly in Adjara is ready for inclusion, but they need additional trainings and practice. The 64 % of questioned teachers claim that after inclusion children with disabilities improved a lot of social and learning skills. 45-50 % of classmates and their parents do not see the negative side of inclusion in children with disabilities. 35% of teachers in Adjara are trained in inclusive education and a lot of training courses are planned to be taken by teachers. Most of the children with disabilities are happy to study in ordinary schools with other children. All above states that Inclusive education is half implemented in Georgian regions: Batumi, Kobuleti and rarely in Adjarian Mountains. Our will is to organize more trainings for school teachers in whole Georgia.
Keywords: Children with disabilities, Children with special education needs, Inclusive education.
1. Introduction
Integrating children with special needs in society means to deny all those discriminative politics and all kinds of barriers what we meet today. For the functioning of society, manual understanding, respect and intercommunication takes the most important place in today's dynamically, ethnically and culturally various world. School Should teach children to protect people's rights and to respect personality, what s/he will use for keeping own and others life.
There is no question that inclusive education, when planned and implemented thoughtfully, has been successful. This success has been documented in the researches abroad At a systems level, inclusive education eliminates the dual curriculum in place many school districts- separate general and special education curricula by grade level and content area, often with little coordination with programs.
Besides this, the philosophy and essence of inclusive education remains vague in educational environment. Contemporary Georgian Schools and teachers are not fully ready for effective execution of inclusive education. The fact is that teachers training programs did not include the teaching methods for inclusive education in the past. In Georgian society still there is not fully implemented and practiced the models of inclusive education. On the other hand Georgian people are not fully informed about the essence of
inclusive education, some of the parents think that their children should not study with disabled children, sometimes it is even dangerous to be in the class with those children who have special needs, because they
hit and strike with classmates and interrupt the lesson procedures. Though, children with disabilities study a lot in inclusive circumstance and improve their learning and social skills. In addition to that children without disabilities also get a lot from children with disabilities, they express sympathy to them and get accommodated with them and people understand that one day they may be at their place.
The aim of this research is to describe the mood, attitude and readiness of Georgian people towards the inclusive education. Below research is actual as there was not much research about inclusive education in Georgia, especially in Adjarian high mountain schools. Basis of the results of below research it is possible to give recommendations to the government of to the Georgia, local and foreigner school teachers and all others interested in this problem. This work will be an exploratory study to find out whether mainstreaming and inclusion are the best options for schooling children with disabilities or if alternative options are available for parents and schools that would allow special children to achieve their maximum potential.
1.1Methodology of Research
The method of research was interviewing and observation of children with disabilities, their classmates, teachers and parents. Paper includes the statistical analyses of teachers in Adjara, Georgia who have already attended the trainings in inclusive education. The observation includes 3 main components: Technical and professional resources for inclusive education, the acceptance of theme and the results of inclusion.
In 2015-2016, Batumi and Adjarian high mountain state and private School personnel and surrounding society were questioned regarding the attitude and readiness
for inclusive education. The survey was cross-sectional, which meant that three population groups were involved in the research study. 577 general educational teachers, 10 special educational teachers handling students with special needs, 55 pupils with disabilities from Batumi N. 6 and N.7 state schools, 45 classmates of Children with special educational needs, 50 parents of children without disabilities but whose children attend classes with children with special needs and 47 parents of children with disabilities. Non-respondents were 10 teachers, 3 parents and 2 students. No reasons were given for non-response, and the research study was clearly voluntary on their part and was designed to give the school administration important feedback on the views of respondents towards the research topic.
Having provided a theoretical framework upon which this study is based to guide the research investigation, two forms of data will be gathered:
1) Primary research data in the form of semi-structured survey results from various respondents-teachers, parents, and students;
2) Secondary research data in the form of reference literature and statistic analyses on the research topic.
Since the objectives of the study are to determine from three perspectives-teachers, parents and students-the effectiveness of inclusion and mainstreaming, the awareness and level of preparedness of those surveyed, and the possible alternatives to inclusion and mainstreaming, three questionnaires were designed. Each questionnaire looks at the research problem from its own perspective.
Questionnaire A is for teachers and was designed to be accomplished in 15 minutes at the most; Questionnaire B is for parents(10 minutes); and Questionnaire C is for children(6 minutes).
The questionnaires were only one page for each respondents. A purposive sampling technique was used with prior approval from the headmaster on the condition that the school and respondents would not be identified.
The questions were concise, easy to understand, and aimed to secure valid and reliable information. Loaded and double-barrelled questions, the use of educational and medical science jargon, and the use of offensive language were avoided. Each question was edited to take out emotionally-charged terminologies with help of experts. Questions were either multiple-choice or open-ended, and value statements were measured using a 5-point Likert Scale.
Questions were structured according to logical groups. This made easier for respondents to answer questions more efficiently.
Questions considered the elements and factors as following: awareness of inclusion models and instructional arrangements, parental reaction to inclusion, procedures for identification and inclusion of students with disabilities, preparation of parents and teachers, including orientation of new teachers and upgrading/updating of skills of experienced teachers, attitudes towards inclusion, and estimated costs of attitudes of inclusion. The survey was designed to measure awareness, attitudes, and effectiveness. Awareness had to be established to ensure that the respondent knew what was being solicited from the survey. Attitudes about inclusion were likewise important for the research because of the controversial
nature of the issue and may also affect the effectiveness of the intervention. This also would reflect the degree of support that the school administrators extend to the school intervention and would help determine its over-all effectiveness.
Effectiveness of inclusion could be measured at different points and using different indicators, behavioral ones such as degree of socialization and frequency of disciplinary issues, and academic variables such as learning progress, school marks for specific subjects, and general impressions on class performance from parents, teachers, and peers.
The data collected was analysed to the researcher's best knowledge. The data sets were subjected to consistent forms of data analysis to assess the validity of findings and find answers to the research questions asked in the study. The findings are tabulated in figure corresponding to the responces for questionnaires with results of basic statistical analysis to determine the degree of confidence for the survey and findings.
1.1.1 Results of Research
After analyzing the information it came out that inclusive education is half implemented in Adjara, Georgia. Majority of respondents(75%) claim that school administration makes appropriate circumstances for Children with Special Education Needs.
Implementing Inclusive education made teachers change themselves in organizing time in inclusion of parents and dealing with children who have special education needs, such as informing parents about purposes of inclusive education, preparing various interesting material for pupils, arranging extra lessons, proposing individual lesson plan, avoiding frequent absences, concentrating the attention to a concrete pupil and managing students security. 35 % of teacher respondents state that they make Individual Lesson Plan for children with disabilities. 45 % of them do not answer the question, what makes us think that they do not make it and even some of them do not know for what it is used, because they do not work with children with special education needs.
Teaching children with disabilities requires from teachers to be fully prepared and trained. The majority of respondents claim that they are ready for dealing with inclusive education, but only 35% of teachers in Adjara are trained in inclusive education, they have attended one or two days training courses and few of them have attended conferences on inclusive education. The thematic of attended trainings included the methods and strategies of inclusive education, the peculiarities of making Individual Learning Plan and the rights of children with disabilities.
97% of teacher respondents are ready for attending more trainings and seminars in inclusive education but only the 48% of them wish to start or continue working with children with disabilities.
58 % of teachers say that they get qualified consultation from different specialists of inclusive education, such as school psychologist, doctor, special teachers in case they need it.
64% of teachers claim that after inclusion children with disabilities improved a lot of social and learning skills, they became more active, self-confident, communicable, self-esteemed. 15% of them do not know the answer. And only the 3 % of teachers say that they are still the same they were in the past.
79 % of questioned classmates of children with special education needs do not see the bad side of inclusion, they say that they made new friends, they understand children with disabilities and are eager to help them. They understood that they also are ordinary people, who need love and care.
45% of parents of children without disabilities do not see the negative influence of children with disabilities on their children. They think that inclusion is the best way for helping people with disabilities and no one is secured from being in their situation. On the other hand 25% of parents think that it is dangerous for their children to study with children with special education needs, because they sometimes hit their classmates, interrupt lesson procedures and teachers lose a lot of time in dealing with them. Also they do not wish their children to have friends
with disabilities.
In inclusive education children with disabilities and their parents take the most important role and place. All the respondents with disabilities state that they like to study in ordinary school with other children. They think that teachers and classmates have good relationships with them and they always help them when they need it. But 45% of parents of children with special education needs claim that teachers are not ready for teaching their children, they need to be more trained and even some of the teachers do not pay attention to their children. They have created the Individual Learning Plan, but unfortunately they do not use it, they just keep it on the shelf.
To summarize it is possible to say that Georgian people's attitude towards inclusive education is not negative and they are eager to implement it(Pls see figure N.1).
Figure 1: Attitude towards inclusion in Georgia.
1.1.2 Discussion
The findings of above reasearch confirms that Georgia is in process of implementing inclusive education, which is very important information for them who are interested in implementing inclusive education in Georgia and abroad.
In comparison with the study of 2006, published by Ministry of Education of Georgia it came out that now Georgian people somehow changed their opinion towards inclusive education, they got more prepared and interested in it. Teachers learned much about the learning strategies for children with disabilities, they changed their mind that children with disabilities interrupt lesson procedures and do nothing more, now they think that it is really difficult to be teacher in inclusive classroom but it is very interesting and useful for society. They understood that it is necessary to attand trainings in inclusive education in order to succesfully manage the inclusive classroom.
This research includes only the personal attitudes towards inclusive education in Georgia. Future research should include the technical and methodological readiness of Georgian nationality and government for implementing inclusive education. One more subject that remains to be explored is where to spend funds for inclusion.
1.1.3 Conclusions
Given some of the problems associated with implementing successful inclusion programs why do educators and parents advocate for inclusive placement? A fundamental reason is that it is right thing to do. Georgian society is ready for inclusion, thus the attitude towards it is various. Some people think that it should be implemented, others disagree to have any reletionships with children with disabilities.
It came out that the attitude towards children with disabilities from classmates are more positive, than the attitude of their parents, who still keep neutral site.
Teachers attitude towards inclusion is different. Teachers see a lot of problems of inclusive education however they are at the side of implementing it. Teachers who have practiced in their classes managing inclusive education state that they see a lot of benefits of inclusion.
Teachers are partially ready for dealing with disabled children, they have attended training courses but still have to improve their knowlenge in inclusive education. Besides this they have to practice it by teaching pupils with Special Education Needs and should be more interested in implementing of inclusive education in their own classes. They should work hard, prepare a lot of exercises
for children with disabilities according to their own needs. They should not think that they can not study. Government should give some bonuses and credits to teachers who deal with children with disabilities and achieve success.
Children with disabilities got good influence by including them in ordinary schools with pupils without Special Needs. They improved their academic, social and behavoural skills. They made friends, increased social initiations, relationships and networks.
Classmates of children with disabilities are ready for inclusion. We can think that this kind of attitude may be the reason of their meeting disabled children in friendly environment, in their second home-school, where they are brought up. Because they accept them as their friends or siblings who have some problems in learning or behaving but still they are ordinary people like everyone with just few differences. No one is the same. And no one is secured from being in their situation. According to this information, It can be concluded that inclusion of children with disabilities in ordinary schools is the best idea helping them to be accepted by society. Because children from their childhood get accustomed with them and they are not surprised about their being different.
From the above research it seems that the most parents of children without disabilities are not satisfied with inclusion, they are not opposite of it but prefer their children not to be with children with disabilities in order to avoid negative influence of them.
Parents of children with special needs state that they were against placing their children in ordinary school, but now they think that it is the best way to help them improve their learning and social skills.
Government and the ministry of education should control schools and teachers if they continue using special
methods for inclusion.
Georgian people have learned a lot since 2006, when no idea was mentioned regarding inclusive education. Time will pass and people who still argue for inclusion, will change their mind, they will understand that to deny a student with disabilities, the opportunity to receive an education in general education environment, when it is an appropriate placement, is, quite simply, discrimination. Enabling students with disabilities to become independent adults is possible only by giving students the skills and experiences necessary to interact in an inclusive society.
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