The attitudes of primary school teachers towards inclusive education

M.Ed.This study focuses on the attitudes of primary school teachers towards inclusive education, the new policy in education, which will be phased in from next year. Since the coming to power of the first truly democratically elected government in the history of South Africa, many changes have taken place. The foundation for these changes is laid by a new constitution. Central to the constitution is the Bill of Rights, which ensures the rights of all citizens, as well as the rights of ALL learners to an education. The right of ALL learners to basic education is underwritten by the policy of inclusive education. This policy is in accordance with the international trend towards inclusive education, where ALL children, including learners with special educational needs (LSEN), have a right to an education of their choice, in public education facilities, wherever practicable. The latest discussion document on inclusion, Education for All (NCSNET & NCESS, 1997), makes reference to "barriers to learning" and the need to remove these barriers in order to promote effective learning for ALL learners. In the learning process, the teacher plays a pivotal role, and could possibly, if not functioning effectively, form a barrier to learning. In international literature, where mainstreaming, and later inclusion, have been studied, it has been found that positive attitudes in teachers, towards inclusive education, play an important role in the successful implementation of an inclusive educational policy. From the literature it becomes apparent, that should teachers' attitudes towards inclusion be negative, their teaching abilities in the inclusive classroom will be negatively affected. As the implementation of the inclusive education policy is inevitable in South Africa, it is of the utmost importance to determine what the attitudes of teachers are towards this policy, in order to ultimately facilitate the successful implementation of the policy. Therefore, the goal of this study is to gain insight into the attitudes of primary school teachers towards inclusive education, so that this information may be used as a point of departure in the training of teachers, and the implementation of the policy, in order to facilitate the development of more positive attitudes, and the ultimate success of inclusion. In order to achieve this goal, two focus group interviews were conducted with primary school teachers, as they will be the first to officially implement this ii) policy, at grade 1 level, next year. Three main patterns of concern emerged from the data, these related to the child, the teacher and government policy. From the analysis of the data it became apparent that these primary school teachers demonstrated mostly negative attitudes towards inclusion . It would probably be advisable for government to take note of these mainly negative attitudes, attempting to establish more positive attitudes in general, in an effort to increase the chances of successful implementation of inclusion