Policy development and management of inclusive education as a strategy for achieving the 'education for all' in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Inclusive education has become a high priority around the world, and also become a global agenda, as an essential component in regular education policies of many countries in the world's strategy for achieving Education for All (EFA). As UNICEF (2004) reported, for Sri Lankan children, the span of compulsory education extends from 5 - 14 years, though 10% of these children are out of school. Therefore, we have to look at Inclusive Education as a strategy to reach the goal of EFA. The Sri Lankan government is convinced about the need but to implement inclusive education successfully as a strategy to reach the goal of EFA, a uniform understanding of the concept of inclusion, commitment on the part of policy makers, individuals and institutions responsible for the implementation of policies, legislation, detailed regulations and guidelines, and inclusive policies as well are needed. Therefore, it seems that no concrete step appears to have been taken with regard to inclusive education in Sri Lanka. Even at policy level, integration and special schools remain the focus of planning special education programmes. In the above context, the overall objective of this study was to find out how inclusive education can be implemented as a strategy in the education system to meet learning needs of all children in Sri Lanka.