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INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN INDIA

Inclusive education in India:

past, present and future
UMESH SHARMA and AJAY DAS
In this article we report on various initiatives taken by the government since
India’s independence in 1947 to provide education to school-aged children
with disabilities. The majority of children with disabilities still remain out of
school. We make an attempt to identify the challenges that the country
continues to face in providing education to this population and possible
ways in which the challenges could be addressed.

Key words: India, children with disabilities, integrated education, and

inclusive education.

India is the second most populous country of the world, with a population of about
a billion and a quarter (Ministry of Home Affairs, 2011). According to official
estimates from the Census of India (Government of India, 2011), the number of
people with disabilities in the country is 26 million, or roughly 2.1% of the total
population. However, other estimates suggest that this number may be as high as
30–35 million (Office of the Chief Commissioner of Persons with Disabilities,
2003; Mitchell and Desai, 2005; Singh, 2001). The Government of India (GOI) has
undertaken a series of initiatives since its independence from the British Raj in
1947 to provide education to children with disabilities. However, the attempts made
by the government have not had any significant impact so far. A large number of
children with disabilities still remain out of school (Mitchell and Desai, 2005) and
only 1% to 4% of children with disabilities have access to some form of education
(Mani, 2003; Singh, 2001). This article is an attempt to understand the possible

© 2015 NASEN
DOI: 10.1111/1467-9604.12079
reasons contributing to poor performance in India with regard to providing educa-
tion to children with disabilities, and to offer possible ways in which some of the
challenges could be addressed. Prior to discussion of challenges faced by the
country, it is important to understand the various initiatives undertaken by the GOI
with the goal of providing education to children with disabilities.

National policies, programmes and legislation

School education in India is a joint responsibility of the state and the central govern-
ment. While the organisation and structure of education are largely the concern of
the state, central government is primarily responsible for quality of education
(Department of Education, 2004). There are slight variations in how school
education is organised across different states in India (Singal, 2006). Schooling
across most states (despite some variations) consists of three stages: primary, upper
primary or middle, and secondary education. Children aged from 6 to 11 years
attend primary school (Grades 1–V), those aged from 11 to 14 years attend upper
primary or middle school (Grade VI–VII) and those aged from 15 to 18 attend
secondary school (Singal, 2006). Children, including those with a disability, up to
the age of 14 years have a fundamental right to education in India. However, a large
number of children with disabilities remain outside the school system.

In order to understand the context, it is critical to shed light on government

initiatives that have influenced educational programmes for individuals with a
disability. It is important to note that most of the work in this regard was
undertaken during the past four decades. One of the earliest formal initiatives
undertaken by the GOI was the Integrated Education for Disabled Children
(IEDC) scheme of 1974 (NCERT, 2011). The objectives of this scheme included
the retention of children with disabilities in the regular school system, pre-school
training for children with disabilities and 100% financial assistance as per pre-
scribed norms for education of children with disabilities. This implied that the
scheme would provide financial assistance to schools to cover expenses relating to
educating students with disabilities in their mainstream classrooms.

In addition to IEDC, in its Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980–1985), the GOI considered
integrated education of children with disabilities a priority (NCERT, 2011).
Subsequent increased funding for integrated education and supplementary poli-
cies, legislation and programmes indicated the government’s commitment in this

56 Support for Learning · Volume 30 · Number 1 · 2015 © 2015 NASEN

regard. In particular, the provision of integrated education as an integral part of the
education system was reflected in the National Policy of Action, the National
Policy on Education/Programme of Action (NPE/POA, 1986–1992) and the
Project Integrated Education Development (PIED; Ministry of Human Resource
Development, 1987; cited in NCERT, 2011). The National Policy on Education
(1986) specifically recommended a goal to integrate ‘the handicapped’ [sic] within
the general community, at all levels, as equal partners, to prepare them for normal
growth and to enable them to face life with courage and confidence (Ministry of
Human Resource Development, 1986).

These early efforts brought the issue of inclusive education to the forefront of
national discourse in the 1990s. They also called for much needed resources to aid
inclusion. While structural changes were taking place on the national level in terms
of policy formulation, changes were slowly becoming evident at the school and
classroom levels. Azad (1996) reported that PIED resulted in both regular school
teachers and students becoming more receptive toward students with disabilities.

The Government of India implemented the District Primary Education Project

(DPEP) in 1994–5. This programme laid special emphasis on the integration of
children with mild to moderate disabilities, in line with world trends, and became
one of the GOI’s largest programmes of the time in terms of funding. Approxi-
mately 40,000 million rupees (approximately 740 million US dollars) were
budgeted to fund this program in 149 districts across 14 states (NCERT, 2011).

In 1996, the Persons with Disabilities (PWD) Act was passed by the Indian
parliament (GOI, 2005). This legislation became the hallmark of a new era for the
education of students with disabilities in India. An essential aspect of the legis-
lation was the emphasis it placed on the integration of students with disabilities
into regular schools (Das, 2001). For the first time, the integration of students with
disabilities into regular schools entered the realm of Indian jurisdiction. One of
the key features of this Act was that any kind of discrimination against persons
with disabilities now came under the purview of law through grievance redress
machinery established at the central and state levels. At the time of the passage of
the legislation, it was recognised as a historical milestone in the provision of
educational and other services to individuals with a disability. Highlighting the
importance of the legislation, Baquer and Sharma (1997, p. 274) stated:

‘In a country like India the numbers of disabled are so large, their problems so
complex, available resources so scarce and social attitudes so damaging, it is

© 2015 NASEN Support for Learning · Volume 30 · Number 1 · 2015 57

 only legislation which can eventually bring about a substantial change in a
uniform manner. Although legislation cannot alone radically change the fabric
of a society in a short span of time, it can nevertheless, increase accessibility
of the disabled to education and employment, to public buildings and shopping
centres, to means of transport and communication.’

A number of other policy initiatives have been taken by the Government of India
since the passage of the PWD Act in 1996. Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA),
launched in 2001, is one such initiative (GOI, 2005). SSA had a policy of ‘zero
rejection’ and mandated that no child with special needs could be neglected or
denied enrolment on the basis of a disability. In 2005, the Ministry of Human
Resource Development implemented a National Action Plan for the inclusion in
education of children and youth with disabilities. Furthermore, in 2009 IEDC was
revised and named ‘Inclusive Education of the Disabled at the Secondary Stage’
(IEDSS). The IEDSS scheme provided the opportunity to all students with dis-
abilities who had completed eight years of elementary schooling to complete four
years of secondary schooling in an inclusive environment. Evaluation of IEDSS
has shown an increase in student enrolment in 11 states from 2010 to 2012. In
2010, ‘India implemented the Right to Education Act (RTE) to legally support
inclusive education’ (Bhan and Rodricks, 2012, p. 367). In addition, a working
draft of the PWD Act 2011 was prepared by the Centre for Disability Studies,
University of Hyderabad and was due to pass in 2012 (Deccan Herald, 2012). The
Act is a significant shift in the way disability is conceptualised by law-makers
(Centre for Disability Studies, 2011), as is evident in the committee report that
was responsible for reviewing the amended Act. The committee reported:

‘The new paradigm is based on the presumption of legal capacity, equality and
dignity. . . .This statute recognizes that persons with disabilities are an integral
part of human diversity, enriching it with their vision, their experience & their
creativity. The statute seeks to provide a vehicle that ensures participation in
society on an equal basis with others and seeks an equality of outcome by
recognizing multiple discrimination faced by women and children’ (p. 5).

Although the amended law has not yet been passed by the Indian parliament, it
shows the government’s commitment regarding the implementation of policy
initiatives for PWD emphasizing inclusive education. It is likely to be debated in
parliament in 2015.

The Government of India has demonstrated that it is committed to equalising

educational opportunities for all children, including those with disabilities. Finding

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out how much of that commitment has translated into reality warrants careful
examination of the extent to which the needs of students with disabilities are being
met in inclusive classrooms. Our literature review yielded a dismal picture of the
outcomes that the policy initiatives had aimed to achieve. For example, Mani
(2003) argued that not even 5% of children with disabilities have been provided
with educational services in inclusive classrooms, although the implementation of
an integrated system of education began in 1975. Gopinathan (2003) contended
that the percentage of students with disabilities attending regular schools is even
lower: only 750,000 students with disabilities receive educational services in
regular schools, and the total population of students with disabilities stands at
30–35 million nationwide (Mitchell and Desai, 2005; Singh, 2001).

According to data provided by the Ministry of Human Resource Development

(2007), the number of students with disabilities served under various inclusive
education schemes/programmes is 5,800 through PIED; 203,146 through IEDC;
621,760 through DPEP; and 1.6 million through SSA. It is clear from these
figures that the number of students with disabilities receiving services under
inclusive education has been constantly growing. However, it can also be said that
the efforts made by the government have only been able to touch the fringe of the
problem, considering the number of students with disabilities in the country.

In order to understand why progress toward the goal of educational inclusion in

India is so poor, we have identified some of the key challenges that we believe
may have contributed. We discuss these challenges under two headings: chal-
lenges at macro level (or at the system level) and challenges at micro level (or at
the school level).

Challenges at macro level

One of the most significant challenges at macro level that seems to have affected the
progress of the country is how disability is defined and understood in the country.

Understanding disability

Albert (2004) stated that the actions we take to address barriers faced by disability
largely depend on how we understand disability. Although disability is defined in
many ways, two models which predominately feature in the literature are the

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individual model and the social model. The individual model is also known as the
medical or deficit model (Albert, 2004). Within this model disability is seen to
reside within an individual, and can be explained in medical terms. There is
pressure on an individual to fit in with society. The social model, meanwhile,
defines disability as caused by barriers that society creates for an individual.
Society thus needs to change its practices to meet the individual’s needs. There is
some merit in the social model compared to the medical model. In India, it seems
the individual or medical model is predominant, and there is evidence of this
stance even at the highest level. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
is mainly responsible for the welfare of people with disability. It defines a person
with a disability as someone with a condition that falls into one of the following
categories: locomotor, visual, hearing, speech or mental (GOI, 2005). The
medical model has permeated almost all policy and legislative documents. For
example, among the most significant national legislation on disability, the PWD
Act (1995) defines a person with disability as:

‘ “a person suffering from not less than forty per cent of any disability as
certified by a medical authority” (any hospital or institution, specified for the
purposes of this Act by notification by the appropriate Government). As per the
act “Disability” means – (i) Blindness; (ii) Low vision; (iii) Leprosy-cured;
(iv) Hearing impairment; (v) Loco motor disability; (vi) Mental retardation;
(vii) Mental illness’ (GOI, 2011, p. x).

Changing policy and legislation requires a significant paradigm shift. Rather than
seeing problems residing within an individual, policy makers need to understand
that providing high-quality education to children with disabilities (CWD) is a
systemic issue (UNESCO, 2005). It is the system’s responsibility to provide
high-quality education for all. Policy makers and implementers also need to
understand that providing high-quality education to CWD is most likely to result
in better services for all students, not just CWD (Peters, 2004). It may, therefore,
be necessary to redraft policies and make necessary amendments to the Acts so
that the necessary paradigm shift is evident in policies in which the problem is
currently seen as residing within an individual (Peters, 2004; UNESCO, 2005).

Conceptualising inclusive education

Educating children with disabilities alongside their non-disabled peers is consid-

ered one of the better ways to provide education to the population in India (Shah,

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2005, Shah et al., 2014). It seems the way in which inclusive education is defined
and understood may be another critical challenge in providing quality education
to children with disabilities. There are wide variations in how ‘inclusive educa-
tion’ is defined and operationalized; terms such as ‘integrated education’ and
‘inclusive education’ are frequently used interchangeably. Singal (2005b) is of the
view that inclusive education is largely adopted from the international discourse
and has not been engaged with in the Indian context. Internationally defined
inclusive education relates to the education of students with a range of diversities,
not just disabilities, included and supported in mainstream schools.

According to UNESCO (2009), ‘. . . an “inclusive” education system can only be

created if ordinary schools become more inclusive – in other words, if they
become better at educating all children in their communities’ (p. 8). In India,
inclusive education is mainly seen as the education of students with disabilities in
regular schools. For example, the Ministry of Human Resource Development
(2003) uses the following definition: ‘Inclusive education means all learners . . .
with and without disabilities being able to learn together in ordinary pre-school
provisions, schools, and community educational settings with an appropriate
network of support services’ (p. xx).

This definitional issue was examined through two local studies in India (Sandhill
and Singh, 2005; Singal and Rouse, 2003). One of the key purposes of both the stu-
dies was to understand how participants conceptualised inclusive education. In
their study of 11 schools, Singal and Rouse (2003) found that most schools accom-
modated children with one particular type of disability rather than a wide diversity
of students. Eight of these schools also had a specialist unit. Some students from
these units were placed in regular classrooms for part of the day; others remained
in the unit most of the time. The researchers also found that the type and extent of
disability that a student had played an important role in influencing the decision of
the school. Students who looked physically different from others and had low
intellectual ability were denied admission to school. Singal and Rouse’s data
revealed that one of the major reasons schools included ‘disabled’ students was
pressure from either government bodies or parents to enrol the students in regular
schools. Other schools also wanted to be seen as being innovative and caring.

In a similar study, Sandhill and Singh (2005) examined perspectives of educators

from ten private schools in order to understand their perspectives on the changes
they had made as a result of adopting inclusive education. Their results were very
similar to those of the study by Singal and Rouse (2003). Sandhill and Singh

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found that the majority of the schools had a special unit attached to them and
‘students with a disability’ spent majority of their time in the specialist units. A
few students did spend some time in regular classrooms; however, placement was
decided based on a student’s ability to fit in the regular classroom. The researchers
examined the inclusive practices of two schools from their sample more exten-
sively. While one school was very similar to the remaining schools in the sample
in terms of its inclusive education practices, the other was clearly an outlier in
terms of its practices. This school used practices such as frequent communication
between school leadership and the teachers and a well-developed, whole-school
plan to implement inclusive education. All school community members, including
students, parents and teachers, worked together to ensure the success of the
programme. There was an attitude of acceptance of students with diverse abilities,
which was spread across the school community.

Teacher preparation

Lack of adequate teacher preparation has been identified as a major barrier to

inclusive education in South Asian countries (Sharma et al., 2013), including India
(Singal, 2005a, 2005b). Currently, graduate teachers completing teacher education
programs are exposed to education of children with disabilities through one or two
theory-based subjects. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that such subjects are
offered as optional subjects (often with very poor enrolments). This situation is
perhaps an indication that within teacher education programmes, education of
children with disabilities is not seen as the primary responsibility of the regular
schoolteacher. One can argue that most teacher education programmes – uninten-
tionally – are preparing teachers for exclusion rather than inclusion. A need to
reform teacher education programmes to prepare teachers for inclusive education
has been articulated both by researchers (Sharma et al., 2009; Mitchell and Desai,
2005; Singal, 2015a, 2015b) and by international agencies (UNESCO, 2005).
However, there is not enough research or policy direction on how this can be
achieved. For any such change to occur at the national level, it is critical that the
peak teacher education organisations (e.g. the National Council for Teacher Edu-
cation and University Grants Commission) demonstrate an understanding that
providing high-quality education to children with disabilities needs to be seen as an
issue of high-quality education provided to all, rather than one of education for
some children. A school that fails to include and provide high-quality education for
children with disabilities is unlikely to provide high-quality education to children
without disabilities. Provision of inclusive education should not be seen as an

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additional initiative. Unless this cognitive shift occurs at the national level, changes
in teacher education curricula across universities and teacher education colleges in
India are unlikely. It may be critical to involve teacher educators (mainly deans of
Faculties of Education) in ongoing dialogues to embrace the idea of reforming
teacher education to include all children.
Different models are used to prepare teachers for inclusive education. Information
about various aspects of inclusive education can be covered in a single subject
(Sharma, 2012) or infused through a number of subjects in the programme
(Loreman, 2010). Teacher education programmes should make an attempt to
evaluate the impact of the training. When changes are made in the programme to
provide a clear emphasis on knowledge, skills and practice, this should result in
a significant shift in new graduates’ thinking about inclusion (Sharma, 2012;
Sharma et al., 2013). New graduates should be prepared with their head (knowl-
edge of inclusive education strategies), heart (belief that inclusive education is
good for all) and hands (ability to teach all) to include all learners (Sharma, 2011;
Shulman and Shulman, 2004).

Challenges at micro level

India’s unique challenges and characteristics, such as low levels of economic

infrastructure and literacy and its unique cultural and social background, are
daunting obstacles to the implementation of inclusive education. On the one hand,
the educational system is influenced by prevailing societal perceptions and gov-
ernmental policies; on the other, it propounds a specific value system and social
order. In India, sectoral challenges to inclusive education can be understood and
discussed in the context of socio-economic and cultural issues, governmental and
policy issues and educational and capacity-building issues. All of these have an
effect on the planning, organisation and management of inclusive schooling
(Bhatnagar and Das, 2013). We will focus our discussion on barriers at the school
level, however; namely, lack of resources, absence of supportive leadership and
lack of requisite teaching practices.

Lack of resources

The literature has consistently indicated that an overwhelming majority of schools

in India lack the necessary physical resources to implement inclusive education
(Bhan and Rodricks, 2012; Bhatnagar and Das, 2013; Shah et al., 2014; Sharma

© 2015 NASEN Support for Learning · Volume 30 · Number 1 · 2015 63

et al., 2009). These resources include basic facilities such as ramps, adequate
lighting and availability of wheelchairs, among other physical resources needed
for a child to attend a mainstream school. Such challenges are greater for schools
located in rural areas and those located in distant, hilly terrains.

In addition to a lack of these required physical resources, there is a severe shortage

of required personnel such as special education teachers, teacher aides, related
service professionals (speech and language therapist, physical therapist and occu-
pational therapist) and other school professionals (Shah, 2005). In the absence of
such key professionals, inclusion endeavours turn out to be no more than ‘child
dumping’ in many instances. According to the Ministry of Human Resource
Development, in 2007 there were only 6,678 resource teachers employed under
SSA – a minuscule amount, given the number of students with disabilities in the
country. Unnikrishnan (2010) argued that in certain situations where profession-
als are present, they are not in fact trained to work in an inclusive setting. Many
of these professionals include special education teachers who have been trained in
the clinical model, for example by working with a child in a one-on-one setting.
Meeting the needs of children with disabilities in an inclusive environment there-
fore presents a significant challenge for these professionals.

Large class sizes present another challenge for the implementation of inclusive
education in the Indian context. According to the Government of India’s own ac-
counts (Sarva Siksha Abhiyan Evaluation Report, 2010), class sizes of 40 students
or more are widespread in states such as Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
This, compounded by a lack of trained professionals, severely limits the ability of
regular school teachers to meet the needs of students with disabilities. Reducing
class size may not be a solution; preparing teachers to teach in large classes and
using existing resources to address the barrier of large class sizes is necessary.

Teaching practices

The entire premise of inclusive education hinges on classroom teachers’ ability to

differentiate instruction and provide necessary modifications for students with
disabilities. However, a number of authors (Shah, 2005; Unnikrishnan, 2010)
have pointed out that regular schoolteachers in India lack familiarity with these
critical skills. In addition, a vast majority of the teachers utilize large-group and
didactic instruction as a dominant form of instructional delivery. The literature is
clear about the limited benefits for students with disabilities when such methods

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of instruction are used predominantly (Shah, 2005). This barrier therefore
severely limits the educational opportunities for a child with a disability to receive
an appropriate education in India.

Lack of supportive leadership

Successful inclusion programmes require supportive leadership at the school

level. Although there is limited literature available on administrators’ support for
inclusion in the Indian context, it can be said that many administrators, especially
those at privately managed schools, succumb to academic and test-score pressures
and neglect the education of disadvantaged groups, including those with disabili-
ties. This is evident from the low levels of enrolment of children with disabilities
in these schools, in spite of the government’s efforts to promote inclusion in the
past four decades. Up until the implementation of the Right of Children to Free
and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (2009), many children
with disabilities were denied even admission to their neighbourhood public
school, let alone the provision of inclusive education. This is still taking place in
schools across India. School leadership and management is, however, under close
scrutiny by the government for any denial of educational rights of children with
disabilities (Ministry of Law and Justice, 2009).

Conclusion

In this paper we made an attempt to describe the efforts made by the Government
of India to provide education to children with disabilities. We also identified some
of the major challenges that this country is facing, which may have contributed to
the country’s poor performance. We do not claim that we have identified all
challenges, nor that the suggestions we have made are a complete list of possible
strategies to address the challenges. Our analysis was largely influenced by work
done by ourselves and other researchers in India, Bangladesh, China and other
developing countries. India is a huge country, with extreme diversity from east to
west and north to south in terms of language, ethnicity, caste, religion, access to
resources and political will. In a country with such diversity, proposing one way
to do things may not be the best way to move forward: what has worked in one
school in north India, for example, may not work in another school in south India.
The mindset of those in power (political leaders, policy makers and teacher
educators) does need to include an understanding that disability is not just a
medical issue, but also social and human rights issue. The best approaches to

© 2015 NASEN Support for Learning · Volume 30 · Number 1 · 2015 65

providing inclusive education opportunities to such a vast number of children,
who are spread across the country, may differ from one state to another or from
one region to another. The fundamental shift that needs to occur at the highest
level is for the provision of inclusive education to children with disability to be
seen not as a charitable issue but as a systemic issue. It needs to be seen as a way
to provide high-quality education to all, not just to children with a disability.

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Correspondence
Umesh Sharma
Associate Professor
Krongold Centre, Faculty of Education, Monash University,
Clayton Campus
Victoria-3800
Australia
Email: umesh.sharma@monash.edu
Ajay Das
Assistant Professor
Dept. of Adolescent, Career and Special Education
Murray State University
3239 Alexander Hall
Murray, KY 42071
Email: adas@murraystate.edu

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