Role of Universities in promoting Inclusive Education

I believe school is a place where tomorrow lives and thus the concept of inclusive education should start right from schools. Also, from Ayurvedic era i.e. the Shruti (listen) and Smriti (remember), we have come to the new dimension now i.e. technology, so we need to expand it across the country to attain inclusivity.

Dr Gautam Bose

A knowledgeable population can play a better role in the democratic process and economic progress of the country. The government has some definite policies for inclusiveness like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Sakhshar Bharat, EFA goals, etc as far as school education is concerned. We try to include every child into the school system, but in higher education many things still need to be done.
It should not be limited to social or economic inclusion only, but the differently-abled population should also be included. It should be part of our national as well as state policy to include everyone. In addition to this, all the services rolled out by the government should be accessible to all and people should be aware about various schemes or services and how can they be availed.
seWe do have reservation policies or admission criteria but as more and more private institutions or universities are coming up, they should have some definite policies as far as their admission criteria are concerned so that they become all inclusive. The fees in these private institutions are very high, so there must be large number of scholarships to include the students from economically weaker sections of the society.
Inclusion should also be devoid of any discrimination like separate classrooms, as there must not be a feeling of inadequacy among the students who are being included. There has to be a right curriculum, examination system and appropriate teaching methodologies. There must be specialised tuition and coaching like some of the IITs do, but such practices need to become more popular and that’s part of the policy. Proper examination and evaluation systems should be made for the differently-abled people and other weaker sections of the society.

With the aim of expanding inclusive education to the states that hitherto did not have a central university, a common Omnivous Act was introduced in the parliament and 12 new universities came up in different parts of the country and Tamil Nadu was one of them. The first dimension of the policy of the Government of India towards expanding inclusivity has been achieved by setting up of these new universities.
Similarly, IT policies should also look at the country as a whole and have an inclusive expansion of its resources so that every corner of the country gets integrated into what we call the national knowledge grid. Unless our country becomes inclusive with regard to expansion of the ICT sector on a broad and an equitable basis, the goals of inclusive education are not going to be achieved.
Moreover, there has to be an inclusive perception of higher education. For instance, people in Tamil Nadu and southern states have a parental and aspirational perception that higher education means engineering and medicine courses. The number of such institutions in these states is evidence enough to understand that there is a skewed perception. But in this context it is important to make the aspiration more inclusive by having many other disciplines so that a university is set up in a liberal framework.
By the end of next year the number of private universities is going to surpass the number of state and central universities. There may be criticism for corporatisation of education, but I think it also helps in increasing inclusivity because it provides opportunities for those who are willing to pay.

Prof G L Datta

We have students from different languages, communication skills, barriers, diverse academic preparations, etc. More importantly there are students with different motivational levels, intellectual calibers and learning styles that makes the whole thing very complex and hence inclusive education has a meaning in this particular aspect as well. To cater to students with low level of academic preparations, we have bridge courses at first year level. We have remedial classes because we have a system that monitors progress of the students, their academic performance, and participation in the classes, etc, regularly. Again at the end of the year we have summer quarter organised for those students who otherwise find it difficulties during the course. To identify students for these courses we have student councils and mentors and we have a system where these mentors identify the students who require special attention.
We find that inclusive education at university level especially in professional courses has a very different relevance and this has to be done with respect to integrating the entire community of students into one level