Implementation of inclusive education

How far are we?

By: Russell Andrew Wildeman & Christina Nomdo
Published by: IDASA, 2007
Via: IDASA

This paper addresses the government's inclusive education and training policy by asking whether provincial education departments have access to sufficient funding and implementation capacity. Concomitant with these questions is an investigation into the funding and service delivery challenges that provinces face in implementing inclusive education and training policies. Inclusive education and training is outlined in Education White Paper 6: Special Needs Education - Building an Inclusive Education and Training System. At a bare minimum, inclusive education and training requires that all education programmes explicitly confront 'disability' in its varied medical, social and economic senses. By insisting upon an expanded definition of disability and by partially locating the origin of non-medical disabilities within educational practices and institutions, inclusive education assumes the mantle of a meta-discourse. It is no longer the sole preoccupation of special needs education directorates, but is diffused into the entire national and provincial education system. This paper tracks the funding and service delivery challenges of this unfolding educational discourse and practice.

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