Education is the pathway to development and progress. It lays the foundations for the betterment of society. Right from the Vedic age education has played a central role in our country and with the 86th Amendment in 2002 the ‘Right to Education’ entered into Part III of the constitution becoming a Fundamental Right under Article 21A. Even as various policies and legislations in our country work towards securing “Education for All” there still remains a section of children that are deprived and often denied this right. These are the Children with special needs (CWSN) who often require additional assistance, a lot of patience and varied forms of support in an educational set up. With the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan’s “No rejection policy” in place, no school can deny admission to a child with special needs, however on the admission of the child it is the environment of the school that emerges as a major challenge. While the Right to Education Act (2009) and Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016) contains provisions for an inclusive educational set up in all schools across the country, CWSN continue to face the brunt of discrimination, rejection, lack of support and other innumerous hurdles in schools. Thus this study aims to understand the effect of inclusive practices in the government schools of West Bengal. A sample of 20 government primary schools from the districts of Hooghly and Howrah in West Bengal were included in this research study. The sequential mixed method approach was implemented and with the assistance of structured interview schedules and in-depth interview guides data was collected from head teachers, class teachers and parents of CWSN in order to derive detailed knowledge on the inclusive practices in these schools.
Keywords: Inclusive Education, Children with Special Needs, Persons with Disabilities.
