On Inclusive Education in China

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Abstract: inclusive education can be defined in different ways, basically it means all the students should be accepted in regular schools and be treated equally despite their abilities. But in china, inclusive education is still new. This article first defines what inclusive education is and introduces the current trend in China, then offers some suggestions of developing inclusive education in China.

Key words: inclusive education schools students

Introduction

As an educational trend, the concept of inclusive education starts to play a more and more important role in the world. Uditsky (1993, cited by Florian, 1998 p.15) defined it as “a set of principles which ensures that the student with a disability is viewed as a valued and needed member of the community in every respect”, while Forest and Pearpoint (1992, cited by Florian, 1998) hold the view that the inclusive education is aimed to cope with diversity, which means how the teachers deal with and take good care of every student.

General Situation of Inclusive Education in China

Laws and regulations have been issued to protect the rights of these students Now, there are three main approaches carried out in China (Wang & Zhao 2008). First, inclusive education begins in kindergarten. Guided by the idea that it is a vital period for individual grow in psychological grow, physical grow and behavioural grow. The strange actions of a kid can be distinguished at this stage and discover the individual potential. It is also important to have an individual long-term and short-term education plan for these kinds which are accomplished by the participation of special teachers, ordinary teachers and their parents. Second, building inclusive schools shall accord to the current national situation. Because the current education condition and the amount of students, it is impossible to ask every school to be the inclusive school. Every province or city should establish some schools as samples for the future purpose. In 2007, some schools started to accept children with physical or mental difficulties unconditionally and they offer provisions in different ways. Other forms of supports include the integration of ordinary students with special students, and the cooperation between ordinary school and special school. The last main approach is to enhance the concept of inclusive education among teachers. They should follow the idea of inclusive to educate and evaluate students and work together with schools and parents to obtain a better and authentic attitude toward every student. (Ibid)

However, the amount of special students and schools are small proportion among all the students and schools. In China, the emphasize of the idea of inclusion education can be seen from the ordinary schools that accept different students from various family backgrounds with different learning abilities. There are nearly 20 millions migrant students staying in the city with their parents and the drop-out rate reaches 9.3% which indicates that more than 1 million children cannot go to schools (Luo 2005). This issue has been realized by the state government and some local government, they are trying to make efforts to improve the conditions of these children guided by the thought that “no child falls behind” (Ibid). And the education authorities in many places set up more schools to accept these children. They invest money to local school and reduce the fees of these students with financial difficulties, create the fair surrounding for migrant students, remove the boundaries between them and local students, set up relevant rules and documents to ensure their rights, and offer provisions (Ibid).

Further Suggestions of Inclusive Education Development in China

Inclusive education has been accepted by educators in China and some researches have been done, but still falls behind. There are no academic magazines or institutions to study inclusive education, and most students and parents or even some teachers do not know about it. There are some advices I would like to proposal to advance and improve the inclusive education in China.

The initial one is to accelerate the development of inclusive education in China. To be precise, that means all kinds of education authorities should pay more attention to increase inclusion by establishing more inclusive schools and train more teachers with inclusive ideas as well as setting up relevant departments or research institutions to study inclusive education, so that more people could understand and accept the thought of inclusive education efficiently and easily. Besides, experience of carrying inclusive education can be learned from other countries like UK or USA which has developed inclusive education for many years and have complete systems, because the idea of inclusive education is still new to most teachers and decision makers, they do not have a clear idea of what inclusive education is. For instance, most teachers still do not know about inclusive education exactly even though the idea of inclusive education can be found during their teaching.

The next one is to improve the functions and roles of regular schools gradually to render them to accept more students with mental or physical difficulties. Inclusive education is a process and is about the participation of all students and its goal is to eliminate all kinds of practice of exclusion (Barton 1998, cited by Clough & Corbett 2002). There are more and more special schools setting up every year in China, and most regular schools cannot accept students with special needs own to the facilities and the distribution of funds, also due to teachers’ capacity in regular schools. In order to change this phenomenon and solve the difficulties in accepting special students to make schools more inclusive, more teachers from regular schools need to be trained to obtain the knowledge of catering students with special needs and these special students also could enjoy the same right of taking education in regular schools without discrimination. As a consequence, regular and special education could be combined as one system to take after a wider range of students who need special assistance (Piji 1995). On the other hand, migrant children needs to be taken by other good public schools since inclusion means all the students should not be excluded.

At last, the process of inclusive education could be slightly adopted and altered based on the currents situation and national context. However, the adoption and the change should be following the main principle of inclusive education that cares for every student and include all the students from all walks of the society. China has large population and 56 ethnical groups live and work together, more and more schools are established in different areas and some are especially for ethnical groups who speak another language, though they can speak and write Mandarin. So when develop inclusive education in China, every aspect needs to be considered carefully, not every place is suitable for carrying out inclusive education, it’s just a sort of relative inclusion. Nevertheless, some schools could be the inclusive schools and carry out some researches and projects first to set an example for others. And other schools with enough resources can accept special students or have connection with special school, so both students from ordinary schools and specials have opportunity to work together and understand each other better.

Conclusion

At present, inclusive education is still a new idea and new trend in China which still has a long way to go. Provisions from the government and schools are the keys to the development of inclusive education in China, both teachers and school leaders need to make efforts to the inclusion of students from all walks of the society with different learning and understanding ability. And little change could make and accept during the process of inclusive education for the sake of China’s situation and development.

Reference:

Clough, P., & Corbett.J. (2000). Theories of Inclusive Education: A Students’ Guide. London: SAGE.

Wang, Yanhua., & Zhao, Hongmei. (2008). Inclusive Education: A new international education trend.