FIRST STEPS
Action Research in Implementing Inclusive Education

Action for Ability Development and Inclusion
October 2004 to September 2007

Foreword
If inclusion is a “cohesive sense of community, acceptance of differences
and responsiveness to individual needs”( Stainback and Stainback :1990 ),can there be any question that this is what good education is?
In most academic circles, the debate around inclusive education is no longer
about the philosophy or the necessity of it, but about finding the mostefficient way to make it happen. However, practitioners are at different
levels of conviction both about the necessity as well as the practicality of it.
Radical changes are needed both in the mindsets of professionals as well as
in the organization of education to ensure that every child receives the lifechanging benefits of quality education. This is possible only if we raise thebar--- when the quality of teaching-learning imparted is equally good in all
schools. Even in more developed countries, it is a struggle to provide
quality education for all children— children with disability, children of
foreign origin, poor children, children from minority communities andchildren from remote rural areas. Decisions in Education should be taken
considering all children as belonging to one group rather than one ‘majority
normal group’ and ‘others’ whose inclusion is a problem.
Great deal of research is needed to arrive at best practices for implementing
inclusive education. The TIE Project is an effort to find some directions
towards the goal of achieving quality education in schools where children
with diverse backgrounds can study together. Through this Project, an effort
is made to study the process of working in five government schools to help
them improve in acceptance of individual differences and respond to them.
On the other side of the spectrum was the conversion of one special school
into an inclusive school. Through three short years of working there havebeen innumerable questions, changes, successes and failures. In Government
schools the overriding need was to first convince the schools about the needto bring about changes in education and then to explore the practicality of it.
In AADI school, where prior to the Project, many years of deliberation andexperiences had convinced the team about the need for inclusive education,
it was possible to work towards developing a blueprint. The process and thelearning’s have been presented in this report.
The Project has been a big challenge. What sustained the effort was thebelief that these changes are crucial to ensure equal rights. The present
difficulties and struggles are helping us find answers for our future work.
Dr. Divya Jalan
Chairperson
AADI

The TeamThe action research was lead and directed by AADI’s Chairperson, Dr.
Divya Jalan, Ms. Syamala Gigdgu, Executive Director, Ms. Renu Singh,
Director and Madhu Grover, Director.
The passionate practitioners were Manavi Jalan, Manjula Mehra, Rupa
Rastogi, Neelam Dutt, Kavita Roy, Anu Mehra, Vidya Dhar Mishra,
Sudesh Kumar, Vindeshwari Shah, Roomki Mitra, Anupama Mandi,
Anuradha Balamurgan, Manisha Tayal, Raminder Yadav, Tapasi Bose,
Sheetal Batra, Chandreshwari Tiwari, Nani Tama, Geetanjali Sarangi,
Chering Bodh, Aanchal Kumar.
AADI School educators who also walked along were Arpita Yadav,Shahana Chakrawarti, Vinita Rawat, Komal Jain and Kajoli Roy
The other practitioners who were a part of the team for sometime wereRadhika Sriniwas, Shalini Kaushik Gunjan Chawla, Vasundhra Singh,
Swati Vaid, Manisha Sambyal, Manita Chandna, Praveen Kumar Singh,
Poornima, Neena Sarihyan, Gauri Sharma, Gurpreet Kaur Grewal, Gunjan
Tripath, Monika Dwevdi, Soumali Dutt, Neelam, Avneet Bedi, Simi
Joshi, Rupamanjari, Meghana, Mridul Kothiyal, Sandeep Rawal, Shantala
Palat, Malavika Mandal, Poonam Goel, Mrinalini, Rohini, Simran,Shalini Varshney, Harshvardhan, Swasti Jain, Vidisha Singhal, Pritika
Dey and Neeta Sharma.
Technical support was provided by Gowri Arundathi while Harpreet
Mehta, Gurdeep Kaur and Seema Ghosh comprised the hardworking
secretarial support.
The two non-practitioner researchers were Anita Lodhi and Jyotsna
Srivastava

Contents
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter 2
BACKGROUND AND THE PLAN
AADI School…………………………………………………………………..………..6
Mainstream Demonstration School (MDS)………………………………….…………7
Alternative Educational Services (AES)…………………………………………….…7

Chapter 3
IMPLEMENTATION AND REFLECTION
Mainstream Demonstration School (MDS)…………………………………………..10
AADI School………………………………………………………………………….22
Alternative Educational Services (AES)……………………………………………..54
Chapter 4
CHANGES AND CHALLENGES
AADI School………………………………………………………………………….61
Mainstream Demonstration School (MDS)………………………………………….64
Alternative Educational Services (AES)………………..……………………………69
Chapter 5
IMPLEMENTING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION………………………………………72
Annexure
Annexure No. 1: DATA COLLECTION METHODS………………………………...81
Annexure No. 2: SIX SCHOOL SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS…......83
Annexure No. 3: DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENTS IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS...103
Annexure No. 4: NOTE ON INCLUSIVE PRACTICES………………………….…..104

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION

Education plays an important role in an individual's journey toward realization of theirpotential. Due to its importance in human development and progress it has been
considered as a fundamental right, which is essential and indispensable for the exercise of
all other human rights. The fulfillment of this right leads to the exercise of other humanrights, while its non fulfillment excludes a person from the enjoyment of most, if not all,other rights. Hence education systems must be designed and organized to meet thevarying needs of individual learners, to provide an appropriate education and fulfil theright to education of each child.
The Government of India proclaimed its intent to provide ‘Education for All’ by the year
2010 and launched innovative legislations and policies in the past three decades to attainthis goal. Even though considerable progress has been made in enrolling children into
schools, still India continues to face a situation where high numbers 1 of children who
remain out of school. The Government of India’s objective of providing education for all
can only be realized when all children including the teeming population of children withdisabilities are provided educational services, as children with disabilities represent anespecially vulnerable section among the millions of children deprived of their right toeducation.
In the past children with disabilities were perceived as ‘different’ and therefore either
isolated from their peers within the confines of their home, or accommodated within a
few special schools that were located in metropolitan cities of India. Today, terms like
integration and inclusion have increasingly entered into the field of education. These
terms reflect changing ideologies and perceptions over a span of time and provide a basis
for generating action. The common element between inclusion and integration is that theywork towards transferring students to less segregated settings. The similarity though ends
here, since each term defines an educational process, which is different in its approach.
The term integration is used to describe the process of placement of students withdisabilities within regular school settings. Thus, a child with cerebral palsy, who may beattending a resource unit within a regular school, is integrated, since she is in anenvironment, which offers her more opportunities to interact with her peer group vis-àvis a special school. Often the underlying philosophy is similar to the “medical model”
whereby the problem is understood to be located in the child.
The term inclusion as defined by Booth 2, (Booth 1996: 22-3) states inclusion to be aprocess of increasing participation and reducing exclusion within schools. For the
purpose of this study, inclusive education (IE) means that all students in a school are full1

In India 1.67 million children are out-of-school, Accessed on 1/9/13
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/167-m-children-in-india-still-outofschool-unesco/article4800039.ece
2
Booth, T. 1996. A perspective on inclusion from England. Cambridge Journal of Education. 26 (1) 87 - 99

1members of that school community and each student participates equitably in theopportunities and responsibilities of the general education environment. Those involved
in inclusion efforts understand that classrooms are becoming more and more diverse andthat the teachers need to change instructional strategies accordingly.
In recent times the term inclusion has been broadened from merely addressing exclusionof children with disabilities from general education, by expanding its mandate tochallenge exclusionary policies and practices within the education system. Thus inclusion
not only refers to students with disabilities, but is relevant for all excluded groups oflearners affected by issues such as poverty, war, neglect or social stratification.
Education is the right of all children, and inclusive education aims to ensure that all
children have access to an appropriate, relevant, affordable and effective education within
their community. This education starts in the home with the family, and includes formal,
non-formal and all types of community-based education initiatives. Within schools
inclusive education is an approach developed keeping the child in the central focus andacknowledges that all children are individuals with different learning needs and speeds.
As a catalyst for change IE provides not only school improvement but an increased
awareness of human rights which leads to reduction of discrimination. By finding local
answers to complex problems it empowers communities and can lead to wider
community development. IE addresses a real need; it is a readily understandable concept
and requires no new major resources. It primarily involves changes of attitudes andbehaviour. It has the potential to be a very effective starting point for addressing therights of the child in a range of cultures and contexts. E.g. open school needs to beviewed with similar respect as other National Boards, and students pursuing the former
must be given equal respect. Issues of identity and discrimination of disadvantaged
students need to be addressed as part of an IE strategy.
Towards Inclusive Education (TIE) Project: Rationale and objectives
Inclusion is a very attractive philosophy. While virtually every professional in the field of
education agrees in principle, the practice of this philosophy differs substantially fromschool to school and indeed from teacher to teacher. Even though there may be no “oneplan fits all” there are certain teaching strategies that meet the unique educational, social
and instructional needs of all students within general education classes. These strategies
are necessary so that inclusion proceeds from an ideological and value laden stance toclassroom practice. Significant educational improvement of schooling, not mere
tinkering, requires that we focus on entire school, not just teachers or principals or
curricula or organization of school-community relations but all of these and more. We
might begin with one or several of these, but it is essential to realize that all areinterconnected and that changing any one element ultimately affects the others.
Consequently, it is advisable to focus on one place where all of the elements cometogether. This is the individual school.

2

AADI with its past experience and learnings, recognizing disability as a rights issue andbased on the emerging new paradigm of educational services addressing the concerns
such as access, equity and quality which are closely associated with the educational
services, undertook the TIE Project (October 2004 to September 2007), funded by
REACH India(USAID), wherein it got an opportunity to begin implementing its
ideological beliefs about inclusion. The focus of the Project was not only addressing theneeds of children with disabilities but rather focusing on diverse needs of ALL children
in classrooms.
The project was an attempt to initiate a collaborative process towards providing
accessible, equitable and quality educational opportunities to all children with a specificfocus on children with disabilities, particularly the girl child. The four project objectives
were:o Promoting inclusive practices and culture in identified demonstration schools in
Delhi through a whole school development approach.
o Influencing existing policies at a micro (school) level to support inclusion of allchildren within the identified demonstration schools.
o Evolving appropriate and replicable service delivery model/s, which address
specific educational and social needs of children with disabilities(mild/moderate/severe) both within and outside the educational system.
o Collating and disseminate empirical evidence generated during the project
towards the ultimate aim of impacting macro level policies.
Based on these four objectives the project’s four essential components became the:1. Five Mainstream Demonstration Schools to be developed across the districts ofDelhi, comprising Government Schools, through a “whole school development”
approach.
2. AADI School to emerge as a model wherein children with disabilities and ablebodied children will be provided meaningful learning opportunities in an inclusive
paradigm.
3. Alternate Education Services to provide educational services for “out of school”
children with disabilities in a creative manner (mild/moderate/severe)
4. Research and Documentation to be a critical component of the Project. A
qualitative research design provided the empirical evidence during the project period.
Overview of the chapters
It is vital that the learning’s that AADI gathered through the TIE Project is shared withsignificant others, in the education field. We believe that the Project must only be seen asa humble beginning in the quest to explore reality-based ‘inclusive models’ of learningthat stand out as winners against the touchstone of equity, participation and access tolearning for all children. This report is a honest documentation of the trials and successes
faced by all those involved in the project and attempts to highlight the processes that we
believe are so crucial for anyone attempting to build ‘inclusive learning environments’.

3

There is much we have learnt, particularly through the adoption of the ‘action research
cycles’ that were adopted in some of the project components. This report will provide thereader a birds eye view of the project. The second chapter explains the planning stage, thethird explains the implementation of the plans section wise for each component. The
fourth chapter discusses the changes and the challenges and the last chapter attempts todraw conclusion from the experience of the project for implementing inclusive education

4

Chapter 2
BACKGROUND AND THE PLAN
AADI adopted an action research methodology for the TIE (Towards Inclusive
Education) project as it would help in achieving the dual aims of increasing theunderstanding about implementing inclusive education, while bringing about sustainablechanges in practice through reflection and evolving learning process by avoiding the top
down approach. Besides, the action research would allow all the stake holders toparticipate in the research process; increases the possibility of collaboration between
researchers and practitioners, for the creation of practical knowledge, leading to changes
in practices.
The processes identified for action research were, transformation of a special school(AADI school) into an inclusive school; to influence government schools (Mainstream
Demonstration Schools (MDS) to move towards inclusive education; and to assess theviability of the service delivery models in the alternative educational services (AES)
located in AADI and in the community. Hence these three sites have become the corecomponents of the project. The overall objectives of the project were inclusion ofvulnerable children in education and service delivery in three streams as depicted in the
diagram given below.
Inclusion of
marginalized childrenin Education
Alternative services
for children
with disability
given
the present lack ofreadinessof education
systems

Service delivery
in three streams

Work withmainstream
Government/private
educational
systems to makethem more
inclusive

Special school includes
non disabled children andattempts to become
inclusive

The Action Research team comprised of one director, two managers of the education
program, two researchers, ten special educators, six general educators, six therapists
belonging to the three different components. In AADI School though, the reflection
meetings involved the entire team of sixteen people5In the initial phase of the project, trainings were held to orient teams to action research
and meetings were held to build a consensus for participation in this process. After
receiving the team’s consensus on participating in the action research, strategic planningmeetings were organised to address the issues identified in the initial reflection. Strategicplanning meetings were organised for all the three components, where the teams reflected
and debated about the nature of inclusive systems and services. After conceptualizing theaims the teams prepared their mission statements, objectives and work plans. The mission
statements were translated into how to do statements, which then became the researchquestions for the teams. The initial plans included inbuilt methods of data collection
methods and process documentation 3 within each of the components. Monthly reflection
and review meetings were organized for each of the components. Besides this a school
situational analysis 4 for the six schools was planned for at the beginning and at the end ofeach project year, to help the teams review and plan further. Tools for assessing changes
in the AES component were developed as well. These exercises helped the team toenvision in detail the practical goals to be achieved by the end of the project.
A meeting with external experts in the field of education was also organized with theobjective of obtaining inputs on the plans and research strategies for each of thecomponents. 5 Plans were modified based on the suggestions given by the expert
participants.
Initial planning - Component wise
AADI School
A two day reflection and planning workshop was organised to envisage themethodologies to be followed in terms of attitudes, environment, grouping of children
and teaching methodologies in order to introduce inclusive education in AADI School.
Though there was no drastic review required as far as the school values and beliefs wereconcerned, but the school had to expand its vision to include all marginalized children.
AADI School restated and reformulated, some of its stated values such as –• Everyone belonged to a family of humanity;• To accept and appreciate differences;• To work in collaboration;• Value everybody’s contribution;• Create a trusting and supportive environment and practice aparticipative/consultative approach to decision making in every sphere of work.
Thus inclusion was a dominant characteristic of its mission statement. The mission of
ADDI School was to join families and community in providing an enabling environment
in AADI School that was inclusive for all, safe and free from fear; to ensure every child’s
holistic development of values, concepts and skills in social, behavioural, emotional,

3

See Annexure 1 for details
See Annexure 2 for details
5
The consultants present were Prof. Poonam Batra, Central Institute of Education, University of Delhi; Dr Vineeta Bhargav,
Department of Child Development, Lady Irwin College; Prof. Geetna B. Nambissan, Associate Professor, Jawaharlal Nehru
University and Dr. Bindu Prasad, Clinical Psychologist.
46

cognitive, physical and personal areas; to develop policies that fostered inclusion and towork in collaboration with staff, students, families and community.
To achieve these objectives the school would attempt to build communities amongst andacross its stakeholders. It would make an effort to build a community of professionals,
students in the school, develop partnerships with parents and establish linkages with thecommunity. There was an emphasis on working in collaboration with different
stakeholders. Practices in the school would be based on the philosophy of
constructivism 6 . The team decided to develop practices for school with the aim of
ensuring each child’s holistic development of values, concepts and skills in social,
behavioural, emotional, cognitive, physical and personal areas. The school policies would
be designed to foster and support inclusive culture and practices.
Mainstream Demonstration School (MDS)
The objectives of this component was to promote inclusive culture and practices inschools and to influence existing policies at school level to support inclusion in fivegovernment schools. The initial plan was that after selecting the team, there would be anorientation and capacity building phase. Simultaneously efforts would be made toacquire sanction for working in the five government schools 7 . After identifying theschools the teams would begin a dialogue with the schools and based on the needs
identified through situational analysis, the teams would design interventions training
modules. After initial trainings the teams would provide ongoing support to teachers inthe schools. Thus for each school a customized module would be developed. In the classthe purpose was to facilitate teachers to reach and ensure each child’s learning. It was
believed that the suggested practices would slowly lead to changes in the culture of theclass and overtime the culture of the school itself. These plans would be implemented andthen reviewed by the team internally but also by the coordinating groups within theschools. A staggered entry into the schools was planned so the team entered school 5 andschool 1 in the first year.
Alternative Educational Services (AES)
A two day reflection and planning workshop was held to develop a common
understanding of the project. The team brainstormed on the objective of AES and reacheda consensus to adapt the following three criteria namely it should provide access to
education which would lead to the children achieving their developmental potential;
provide services on a regular basis in set ups where peer interaction was an essential
feature; and the services would address the family needs and would to collaborate toensure the fulfillment of the rights of children and families to assess the appropriatenessof service models.

6

As it seemed more in alignment with the concept of inclusion
To implement the second process of influencing the government schools to move towards inclusive education, AADI project teamapproached the Directorate of education, Delhi in October 2004 to allocate five schools which can involved in the project. It took overseven months and more than seven meetings with different offices of the Directorate of Education for the sanctioning of the fivegovernment schools and finally the schools were allocated in the month of May 2005. The five schools allocated to AADI wereoperating in five different districts of Delhi namely the South, North East district, North District, North West B district, and the central
district. These schools here after referred to as School 1, School 2, School 3, School 4 and School 5 respectively.
77

Of children with disabilities
Access to services
Address
specific educational
needs

Opportunity to achieve
developmental potential

Appropriate
Address
specific social
needs

Placement in moreregular educational services

Address Family Needs
Stakeholder Involvement

It was agreed that the nature of service delivery would be collaborative and family
centered. To achieve this, involvement and participation of parents and children wasconsidered essential at all levels and in all areas-during evaluation, in sessions, andprogramming. Teams agreed that parents and professional should work as a team andhave an open relationship. Sharing of assessments and other information with parents
would happen frequently. To encourage ownership of the program by parent’s theywould be involved in the management of the program by seeking regular feedback about
the program. Parents would be a part of all the decisions regarding their children andteams would make goals with parents and review those goals every six months. Afterinitial assessments teams would prepare short and long term goals to impart focused andcomprehensive services to children. The team would create a child friendly environment
through appropriate use of materials and restructuring of the rooms. During sessions,child centered and play way methods would be utilized. Regular school and home visits
would be essential, while placement of children would have to be pursued aggressively.
Transitions and transfer systems would be developed to reduce stress of children andparents due to changes in teams or programs. This could be addressed by ensuring an
introduction of the old team to the new team. Documentation would be pursued
rigorously to facilitate an effective transfer of information. The system of key worker
would be continued wherein one of the team members would become the key worker andwould be responsible for keeping in touch, calling, following and tying up with families.
Information resources would be developed for referrals. The beneficiaries were grouped
according to the geographical zones they belonged to. Teams were also assigned different
zones (based on the Municipal Corporation of Delhi zones). To support the staff inaddressing issues team meetings would be held regularly. All staff would practice selfevaluation. Peer-discussion of the program would be encouraged.

8Chapter 3
IMPLEMENTATION AND REFLECTION
Policies, practices and cultures followed by the schools will have a direct relationship oncommunity’s access to school, admission process and procedures of the school, andfacilitating the involvement of parents in school management etc. For inclusive education
to happen change must happen both at policy level and at the practice and culture level.
The inclusive education project undertaken by AADI attempted to bring such changes
both in Main Stream Demonstration Schools (MDS) as well as in AADI, the special
school. This chapter describes in detail the policies, practices and culture that were inpractice in these schools at the time of TIE project implementation and the interventions
introduced in policies, practices and culture during the project in MDS and in the special
school and their impact on inclusive education.
With the objective of influencing existing policies at a school (micro) level to support
inclusion of all children within the school several strategies were adopted to attempt toincrease access to school, increasing access to information about admission process andpolicies, addressing gaps in implementation of the admission policy and facilitating
involvement of parents. To promote inclusive practices and culture in the schools thestrategies such as facilitating a supportive environment; facilitating more sensitivity andpatience and facilitating inclusion in learning were adopted. The last strategy included
further sub strategies such as direct work with children to facilitate inclusion of allchildren in learning , facilitating knowledge and skill building to address diversity inclasses , facilitating active learning/maximizations of learning by active
learning/maximizing learning by active, facilitating lesson planning for addressing
diversity/lesson planning for addressing diversity, facilitating collaborative learning/collaborative learning , facilitating joyous learning /making learning fun /making
learning fun/playground , facilitating encouraging self discipline/encouraging self
discipline, and raising awareness about diversity.

9Section – 1: Main Stream Demonstration Schools
POLICIES:
Access to School
Based on the understanding that inclusive education also meant that each and every childshould be able to access quality education, attempts were made to ensure that no child
was left out of school within the catchment areas of the school. The survey conducted in
the catchment areas of the five selected MDS schools confirmed that many children
remained out of school. The survey roughly covered an area of about ten kilometers andcovered forty three thousand five hundred and fifty six households. A total of one
thousand seven hundred and twenty eight out of school children were identified. Amongthese surveyed out of school children, two hundred twelve out of school children
approximately twelve percent of the total out of school children were found to be having
disabilities.
However admitting children in large numbers in the age group of above six in Sarvodaya
School was difficult. The identified children would have to appear for exams those wereconducted by the Sarvodaya schools to admit children from class two onwards and thechildren identified did not have enough inputs to clear these exams. To overcome thesehurdles younger children were admitted into MCD schools. Many parents were not happy
with the solution as these MCD schools were not of good standard. Nevertheless they
were persuaded to admit their children in these schools. Among the older group children
the survey revealed that most of the older children were school drop-outs, either dropped
out of the school, because they had no interest in going to school though their parents stillwanted them to study or the school authorities would strike their names off theenrollment list, because they were absent from the school for more than six months, as
they would go to their villages for long duration.
Access to information about admission process and policies
Lack of information and lack of awareness about admission processes and procedures
among the community people would adversely affect the admission of a child in theschool. During the school survey parents had shared that they usually did not haveenough information about the admission process and procedures. Parents often fail toproduce numerous documents required by the school authorities for giving admission tochildren. If children were not enrolled at the correct age it becomes difficult to get
admission at a later age.
To disseminate information about the admission processes and procedures in thecommunity, the research team organized many admission drives during the month ofMarch for the years 2005, 2006 and 2007, in the community living around all the fiveschools. Pamphlets in Hindi and Urdu (for school three) containing information aboutadmission dates and papers required for registration and other provisions like reservationsin schools were distributed. Door to door visits were made to inform people about

10admissions and also to groups of people gathered together, by using a megaphone. The
information was disseminated to other potential resource persons like the Aanganwadi
worker and the pradhans of various camps as well. In the third year of the project theschool also participated in the admission drive by the principal’s initiative by taking arally out.
Addressing gaps in implementation of the admission policy
Parents were supported individually during registrations and admissions. Clarifications
were frequently sought for parents from the principal and visits were made to the DDE
for ensuring implementation of the stated policy by the school principal, with success.
Towards the third year the schools were approached with greater aggression to implement
policies as stated. Still many parents went back from school feeling helpless anddisappointed at being unable to secure admission for their children.
Facilitating involvement of Parents
The team’s intervention focused on facilitating involvement of parents by encouraging a
dialogue between the two stakeholders. The team suggested that many of the problems
faced by the school authorities would get resolved through regular parent teacher
meetings. It was suggested that monthly parent, teacher meetings should be organized to
discuss various issues with parents. These meetings were supposed to be held according
to the stated policy but were not being organized at the school level. The meetings would
be held with an objective to create space and time for parents to listen to the teachers anddiscuss their own concerns and issues. Although teachers in all the schools agreed toorganize parent, teacher meetings some teachers however raised doubts about the abilityof illiterate parents in helping their own children in their studies. While some otherteachers felt that no parent would turn up for these meetings.
The team also raised the issue of fixing the most appropriate time for holding PTMs, inorder to ensure maximum participation from parents and changed the timings of PTMs
based on the suggestions given by teachers. The team also changed the method of
informing parents about the parent teacher meeting by requesting the teachers to write
about PTMs in the children’s diaries instead of just giving verbal instruction to children.
In one of the schools as two teachers did not want to write in the children’s diaries for
informing parents, the team prepared a printed circular to distribute it among the school
children. The team also visited the houses of the children in Primary classes to meet theparents as well as to inform them about the PTM.
The attendance in all the five schools was much more than the teachers were expecting.
The project team also attended these PTMs along with teachers. In the initial stages, theproject staff did the introductions and then teachers took over and raised various issues inall the schools. In three of the schools the principals addressed the parents of primaryclass students and gave them information about the school facilities and their rights. The
principal encouraged parents to share their issues and concerns. In school four the
principal also encouraged them to participate more in the school activities. A first step11

had been taken and there was a need for continued interaction among the school and theparents. In School one the principal was over whelmed with the number of parents who
had attended and wanted these meetings to continue. He also wanted to hold suchmeetings with parents of children belonging to sixth standard to address disciplinary
issues. The parents met the teachers as a group as well as met the class teachers
individually. The teacher shared the performance of the students with the parents.
There were certain instances, where teachers were not happy with the PTMs. In school
two in one of the PTMs, the teachers questioned the need for such a meeting in front of
the parents. In another school initially the teachers refused to address the parents till theteam persuaded them to do so. In another school teachers took a very casual attitude to
the meeting. In the initial meetings parents and teachers kept blaming each other for the
problems being faced. Parents felt teachers made unreasonable demand on children anddid not teach well. The team felt that teachers did not show good listening skills andargued with parents. Teachers became defensive when parents raised any issue. Teachers
seemed to have found it a harrowing experience, as parents had earlier never been giventhat equal status and opportunity to express. But parents were quite forthcoming withissues and suggestions. Parents seemed co-operative and offered to help the school with
their suggestions.
Teachers during the PTMs raised issues about cleanliness, regularity, timings of the lastworking day and punctuality to be followed by children etc. Teachers suggested thatparents could meet the teachers in the morning or afternoon when they come to drop or
pickup their wards from the school, instead of trying to meet teachers during school hours
and there disturbing the whole class. Teachers also requested the parents to check theirward’s dairy daily and to help the children in doing their homework; ensuring thatchildren bring text books and notebooks as per the time table; to revise the work done by
the children in the class on daily basis at home. They also requested the parents toprovide stationery to their children.
On their part parents raised issues like holding PTMs at least once a month, preferably on
the last Saturday, some parents also asked for it to be held twice a month. Teachers wereasked to give equal attention to all students through turn taking or other means.
Homework and other instructions must be written in the diary. Parents insisted on giving
homework on regular basis, because a child is more likely to follow the teacher’s orders
than the parents. Students should have extra curricular activities. The notebooks should
be checked regularly- at least once a week. They demanded that a peon should stand at
the gate so that parents may forward messages to the teacher, since they are not allowed
to come in, at times and also that clean drinking water should be provided to children.
Parents complained that students were not treated well by the teachers and even monitors
bullied other children and their conduct should be checked. They also complained aboutteachers being absent frequently and the shortage of teachers. Some issues were very
specific to certain school for instance in school three parents demanded that the entire
class should have books in the same language. Since it was an English medium school,
the books should be in English; they also wanted a principal to be appointed and statedthat Primary classes should be shifted to the ground floor as children have to climb three12floors carrying heavy bags. Some complained about the cleanliness of the school. In
school five the parents were worried about the fact that some of the classes did not haveteachers. The Principal asked parents to volunteer till such a time that teachers wereappointed and five parents gave their names. The principal had finally selected two parent
volunteers after conducting interviews with them.
PRACTICES AND CULTURE: To promote inclusive practices and culture in themain stream demonstration schools
Facilitating a supportive environment
Attempts were made to create a space for dialogue and discussions between teachers andprincipal-towards building more positive relations. Principals were involved in meetings
where teachers were encouraged to share their problems. For instance after the teachers
shared with the principal about their need for a room, the principal assured them that theywould get a room. In school two the principal also began to take rounds of the primarysection as a result of the sharing that happened between teachers and the principal.
Project team encouraged children to follow appropriate behavior like talking more about
themselves and complaining less about other children, rather than laughing at weaker
children who were unable to understand helping them in their studies. Shy children wereencouraged to make friends with other children by asking their classmates to have lunchwith them or play with them. Children were discouraged from teasing and laughing atchildren who had disabilities by creating sensitivity about the issue amongst the classduring class intervention. The team also tried to discourage teachers commenting aboutchildren and pointing at the weaknesses of children.
Facilitating sensitivity and patience
Teachers set the culture in the class and the nature of teacher student interaction wasconsidered crucial in creating a supportive environment for children’s effective learningand growth. Various efforts were made to make teachers realize that children are
sensitive and need to be respected as individuals. The team had shared with the teachers
the importance of feeling- touch and feeling-tone. Support was provided to individual
children who were facing difficulties in the classrooms.
Teachers were encouraged to provide a welcoming environment for class first students inorder to make the first day in the school a pleasant experience. It was felt that the children
coming to class first did not receive a welcoming environment on their first day in any of
the schools. For many of them, it was first day in any school. Presence of large number ofother students in it, presence of a number of unfamiliar adults makes it an overwhelming
and threatening experience for many of them. Project team suggested that teachers workon building relationships with the children, to make them comfortable in the classenvironment. After discussions with the teachers who were going to be the teachers ofclass first, it was planned that, there will be an introduction and then an orientation ofschool premises, so that children would know about the surroundings (toilet, drinking

13

water, play ground etc). Some instructions, time table and books would be given to
parents. The team suggested to have some introductory games, poems and story telling on
the first day of the school. The team also suggested to encourage children to draw
something on a piece of paper, teachers then would display those drawings along with thename of the child on the notice board or on the wall.
Facilitating sensitivity in teachers“A little girl in Class first would keep crying and refuse to go to her class. She was left
like that outside her classroom. She was going to the class before the school was closed
for Dusherra holidays. However, after that she did not want to go to the class. She did
not want a male class teacher (As reported by the parents). Instead, she would go and sit
in the fifth class, as this teacher had once spoken to her sweetly and given her sweets.
The parents scolded and hit her, even tied her feet with a rope, and threatened her that if
she would not sit in the class they would put the class V teacher in jail. To this, the girlsaid that if they did anything to her teacher, she would kill them. The facilitator spoke toher and told her that her mother would sit with her in the class. She agreed and slowly
became involved in the classroom activities. Thus, gradually she adjusted and enjoyedsitting and participating in the classroom activities. Yet another girl was also going toemotional upheaval. The class teacher adopted the same strategy independently andhappily got the child inside the class”.

Teachers agreed to create an environment so that children would feel comfortable. In
schools where teachers cooperated in this program, the class atmosphere became
absolutely light and children were comfortable in their new environments. In school three
the teacher agreed to do an introduction activity with the children as suggested by thefacilitator and was surprised to see how children enjoyed telling other’s names. Most
teachers expressed their inability to implement the program by citing various reasons.
Facilitating inclusion in learning
Confirming exclusion from learning
Diagnostic tests were conducted to assess the degree of exclusion faced by the children
from the teaching process. A total of 1094 children from the sixth standard took the test
and the result of the diagnostic test in the five schools was dismal. Only 0.2% (twochildren) was found to be at class five levels in Maths, while 1.8% (twenty children) wasat the class five levels in Hindi.
Inclusion of all children in learning
The project team began work with two classes each in the first two schools to influence
the teachers to adopt inclusive teaching practices. The teachers sought help from the
project team to work with those children, whom the teachers considered as weak.

14

The team began working with the children identified by teachers and helped excluded
children in class to catch up. The team visited the school every week and worked with theteachers and assessed the children who were facing problems. The team used to regularly
check their performance levels, give them homework and work out strategies to include
them within the class. The team asked the class teachers to make a list of students who
were at the letter recognition level and then they would observe the children and workwith them. Similarly the team also identified students whose concepts were not clear andwas regularly made observations and worked with them. Sometimes project members
taught the class and realized that half of the class did not understand the concept.
While teaching concepts in Hindi and Maths, worked on pre writing abilities, pre number
concepts, number recognition of the children using flash cards. Children were engaged in
activities like joining dots, tracing and copying to improve their handwriting andattention building exercises, drawing activities were taken up with children to motivatethem to be more creative. Teams also made interventions in the areas of hygiene, forinstance the teams asked children to clip their nails and explained to them the importanceof maintaining hygiene.
Assessments and observations about children’s levels of learning were made to further
work with individual children; concepts were explained directly to children, throughindividual instructions, children who had difficulty in reading were given help during theclasses. Different seating arrangements were suggested to encourage the weaker children
sit in the front two rows of the class, allowing the teacher to pay more attention to thesechildren. Weaker children were asked to come to the blackboard and gave them an
opportunity to answer in the class.
Children who were weaker were encouraged to take on tasks which they found difficult.
Besides helping the weaker children to learn by themselves, other children were also
encouraged to help them. Children were encouraged to ask questions to their teachers anddo self-evaluation by encouraging children to correct mistakes of each group. Children
often came to the team members asking to explain something they didn’t understand.
In 2007, a foundation course was organized in School four after conducting thediagnostic test in class sixth. The Principal proposed to use the assembly time for thefoundation course. The team prepared a list of students who were functioning at lower
levels than the desired fifth class level. However after two sessions the course had to be
stopped as the time of the year (January) was not appropriate to do the foundation course.
Teachers were under pressure to finish the syllabus. The outcomes of this intervention
have been too little to have any impact on children.
In the year 2007 during the month of May, a summer camp (for sixth class students) was
organized in school one in response to the concern expressed by the Principal of School
about the poor results of that year and the fact that teachers were being issued memos forpoor performance of children at the end of class six. Permission for conducting thesummer camp was taken from the Directorate. During the first week of the summer camp,
the team did activities such as theatre, art & craft and used language experience approach15

for reading. The theatre was introduced for fun & creative thinking but the students did
not appreciate it. They stated that they wanted more of academics in the camp. Based on
this feedback in the second week the team focused on academics and that too only on
Hindi and Maths. In Hindi, the team worked on word formation [without maatras], lateron students were introduced to maatras and taught to form words using maatras.
Comprehension skills were also worked upon. The facilitator did story writing, poems,
paragraph writing etc with the class. The team also worked on the creative thinking byencouraging them to make stories using words that were learnt during the day. In Maths
the team started with number concept and place value, then went on to introduce addition
and multiplication tables. The facilitators focused on teaching the four basic operations
like addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and also application of these four
operations.
At the end of summer camp, feedback was sought from all the students about the camp,
about the facilitators and their method of teaching. After a little hesitation, children gave
their feedback. On the last day of the camp, the diagnostic test was repeated with thestudents so as to see if there was any improvement in their levels. The format of the test
was similar to the one given at the beginning of the camp. The students were given
participation certificates to encourage them to attend more of such workshops
Facilitating knowledge and skill building to address diversity in classes
Teachers’ Training: Teachers were introduced to the concepts and teaching
methodologies such as activity based teaching, planning, phases of learning, diversity,
learning styles, collaborative learning, ground rules, learning styles and the learning
pyramid etc, during the training sessions, the team discussed the advantages ofcollaborative learning and disadvantages of individual learning. Team held meetings andtrainings using strategies which they would later recommend for children 8. The five days
training modules were organized for assistants and the upper primary teachers of the fiveschools. The modules were based on the needs expressed as well as elicited from theteachers during various meetings and daily interventions. The topics covered under themodules emphasized the fundamental concept and methodologies which were required
for making a class inclusive. The ‘Anekta mein Ekta’ trainings conducted for teachers
reflected on evaluating the effectiveness of their teaching and whether they were able toreach out to each child. The focus was on what children were learning or would learn
8

The team narrates the details of one such meeting “The Primary and Upper primary teachers gathered in
the room. The principal introduced the AADI team to the teachers and also about their work. After this, inorder to know each other better, an introduction activity was done. In this activity, the members present had
to introduce themselves and their colleagues would describe a quality about them. The activity went quite
well and everybody seemed to be relaxed. Then one of the members of AADI shared the purpose of ourwork in detail. After this, another activity was done in which the group was divided into four teams andwere asked to assume the roles of different stakeholders, i.e. Parents, Students, Teachers and theAdministration (Principal and the Directorate). The groups were told to first discuss the strengths andchallenges of each stakeholder and list them down. Each group then had to give a presentation in the larger
group”.

16rather than just teaching. Life skills were also covered in the training. These training
sessions were repeated to cover all the teachers, who were absent from earlier training
sessions. In all seventy six teachers finally attended the trainings. The principals came
only for sometime during the first and the last day of the training. The strategy of
supporting teachers in classes was expressed that they had attended a number of trainings
in their career but nobody had taught them how those should be implemented. Teachers
thus demanded for demonstration of theory shared by team; they wanted to see the teamteaching in their classroom with over seventy children.
During the training the teachers seemed very reluctant, initially there were apprehensions
among teachers about the usefulness and need for attending these trainings. On the very
first day a teacher commented that “pehle wahan (Yuva Training) bhugat kar aaye hain,ab yahan bhugten ge”. (First we suffered there, now we would suffer here). Someteachers only came on the last day. However, the teachers who attended the training
sessions from the beginning gave positive feedback and stated that they realized theimportance of the affective domain and making learning a fun.
Demonstrations: Besides organizing five day training modules, teachers were also
provided ongoing class support which included demonstration and modeling of strategies
such as collaborative work, learning management activities, implementation of a lesson
plan, to create an open and supportive climate in the class, questioning skills that theteachers can use to generate interest amongst children activity- based teaching activities
to facilitate their reading skills, activities enhance the language skills.
In School three, the demonstration was organized by first asking teachers to choose theclass, choose the subject and lesson which they wanted to be taught. In school one after
the group trainings the team used the teachers need for a hobby room as an opportunity todemonstrate inclusive practices. They invited the teachers along with all the children of
their classes individually to the hobby room. For each class the activities, material andinstructions planned for the session was shared with the class teacher and they wererequested to participate by conducting the activity. The introduction, energizing
activities, making the ground rules and grouping of the children was done by the AADI
facilitator.
In all, three teachers participated actively and conducted the activities well. Others
remained present in the class, observed the facilitators and some of them went to thegroups and guided the children. One of the class teachers sat on the durries with her head
down on her knees and did not participate at all. When the teachers were asked to takeover the plan, the teacher requested the team to continue. The team felt that the children
had really enjoyed being with the team in the hobby room and the doing activities given
to them.
Ongoing Support in Class: This was done by giving them ideas and suggestions indifferent areas of intervention, clarifying doubts, reinforcing and explaining concepts
discussed during trainings, sharing teaching strategies for different concept. Considering
the fact that each class has diverse learners, they would take different time at each phase.

17

It was equally important to relate teaching objectives with the learning outcomes of thechildren. It would also be beneficial to integrate the subjects with each other. The teambrought the mistakes made by the teachers into their notice. Assistance was given toteachers in explaining the concepts to children. Some teachers felt that they needed
support in teaching language, two other teachers wanted help in teaching fractional
numbers.
Facilitating active learning
To maximize students’ learning, teaching methodologies such as learning by doing andactivity-based learning were encouraged. teachers were suggested to take up activities
like quizzes, building a word ladder, making a English to Hindi dictionary, etc. Similar
activities were suggested for maths, and social studies also. On Children’s Day, two Bal
Sabhas were organized by combining Class first, second and third and Class fourth andfifth. Children sang songs, recited poems and shared jokes among themselves.
To encourage teachers to practice activity based teaching, sometimes learning materials
worksheets were prepared and given to teachers on the spot to explain the concepts.
The teachers revised the syllabus in the same way that they had taught. The AADI
facilitators tried to do the revision task done by the teacher in different ways to be able toreach each and every child. Teachers could notice changes in the responses of thestudents and also their increased participation.
Facilitating Lesson planning for addressing diversity
Attempts were made to plan lessons with teachers as it was emphasized that in an
inclusive class pre planning was essential to reach out to every child. Initially teachers
were asked to prepare their plans for the day. Teachers would respond by asking the teamto do the suggested activities with the children.
This strategy was not conducive to developing a smooth relationship and after realizingthat they needed to plan before the teachers enter the class and that would be the most
comfortable situation for teachers. Teachers were asked about their plans for thefollowing week. But teachers would not share these.
In School five teachers had expressed a need to do class-wise planning. Teams plannedwith class II teachers of this school for classroom transaction. The team was happy to seethat the teacher had decorated her classroom as suggested by the team. When the teamasked the teachers how they were planning to do lessons for instance on fractions
teachers would ask the team for suggestions. The team would suggest activities andsometimes the teaching methods also. Teachers did not really cooperate in planning theactivities. The teachers prepared the lesson plans based only on the first introduction
phase of learning.

18Facilitating Collaborative Learning
It was generally observed that students were made to work mostly alone and eighty two
percent of the children stated they sat separately and did their own work. During
interventions there was an emphasis on learning together in classrooms. Teacher was
made aware about group processes and its related aspects, wherein ultimately students
would take on the responsibility of their group members. This would instill values ofcollaboration, participation and helping each other. Suggestions like making weaker andbrighter children sitting together and making partners among children who would support
each other in studying at home also were given to teachers.

Collaborative Learning
It is reported “The class was arranged in groups of six students each. The team
distributed one card per group, which contained some mathematics problems on one side
and word/meaning in jumbled form on the other side. Each group was asked to solve all
the problems on their card in their note books. Students were excited and started solving
the problems as a group task. All the groups could solve their respective set of problems.
Team invited the groups one by one to blackboard after all of them finished their task.
Each group member came up and talked about the card. They were then asked to recite
the poems of their choice as a group. Students participated in this activity wholeheartedly. Children liked sitting in groups. The team observed that the children spoke
freely in small groups but many were too shy to speak in the larger group. Some of thechildren were feeling very shy might be that happened first time and they did not havesuch kind of exposure.”

Space became a major hurdle in the intervention strategy regarding groups. Teachers
complained that the space in the classrooms was not enough to form groups in theclassrooms. There was not much moving space in the class room when the desks werearranged differently. The teacher would have difficulty to move around in the classroom.
The class size was too small to form groups and change the sitting arrangements. As itwas sometimes difficult to change the seating arrangement groups were made based on
rows. Teachers also complained that in-group students were not able to see the blackboard. Most children are not familiar in working with groups and there seem to be utter
chaos when the children were asked to do group work. They still tended to do their work
individually. Children were not familiar in working in groups and the team states thatsharing ideas, space and material was alien to them.
The children were not used to work in the groups and made a lot of noise which irritated
the teachers but by October 2006, within the groups children were helping each othermaking much less noise.

19Facilitating joyous learning
Intervention activities also focused on modeling strategies and activities for making
learning enjoyable to children. Thus drawing, singing songs, poems, playing Antakshri
and story telling activities were conduced frequently. Action poems like Chidiya Ghar,
Hara Samundar and games like Boogie-Woogie, Pepsi clap, Tomorrow Holiday Ek kepeechhe ek kala chor, racing, Pepsi fizz, and Pepsi clap were some of the favorites of thechildren and they would often ask the team to repeat them. Games which helped children
have fun and learn concepts as well word-building exercise, concept of circles, left andright directions, were often played. Fun activities like stories, poems, and songs were
often used to bring order to the class. Playing these games with teachers allowed them tomodel a less authoritative role of a teacher.
Encouraging self discipline
The team modeled many classroom management activities. Class management strategies
were often combined with teaching strategies to settle the class if a story was being told,
it would include words which they had studied in the lesson. To control the noise in theclass, group captains were appointed and groups were given marks for maintaining
silence and discipline.
Benches were rearranged to make more space in the classroom and were organized insuch a manner that the teacher could approach all the students. Ground rules were
formulated such as they had to make sure to visit the toilet and for drinking water during
the break and before coming to class. However in case of emergency, they werepermitted to visit toilet even during the class hours. Children would always quickly makea line to leave the class and would fight to stand in the front. To counter this after letting
them make a line the team would ask the last child to go first which shocked the children.
Attempts were made to maintain certain level of cleanliness by asking children to use
dustbins to put their papers.
Initially it was difficult to maintain discipline in the class in the absence of teacher andthe team also ended up shouting at the children in the similar manner as the teacher used
to shout to keep children quiet. When the team was alone in the class, they reported thatthey had to raise their voice often as they faced difficulties in making children settle
down. They too resorted to punish children who were hitting each other by making themstand for five minutes and thereafter they sat quietly.
Raising awareness about diversity
The team used various opportunities besides the group trainings to increase awarenessabout diversity. For instance the team realized it was a good opportunity to explain about
the wheelchair during a lesson related to a girl who used wheelchair (pahiyon wali kursi)
and was unable to go to garden to play with her friends, because she got stuck on those
steps. Team explained to students briefly about wheelchair and its user and put questions
to the students like if a child in your school would come in a wheelchair what would be20their feelings about that child and how will they help the child? Students responded thatthey would be happy to see such a child in their class. Some students asked whether suchchildren also go to school? Students then said that they would help him/her in coming
and going out to classroom but at their school’s toilet there are steps, he / she would havea problem. The team also invited the teachers to participate in the career development
forum. Six teachers from school one and two came for the visit. They shared that the visit
had been a good learning experience for them. One of the Teachers shared that she was
happy to have come as she had realized that persons with disabilities would also havesome abilities as well.

21

Section 2: Journey of a special school transforming into an inclusive school
AADI SCHOOL
A twenty-seven year old special school was propelled to undertake a journey oftransforming itself into an inclusive school because of changes in its approach toeducation, a new perspective about the education of children with disability, a deeper
understanding of the rights of children with disabilities and the feedback of its former
students. The school was constantly engaged in rethinking, but the changes incurred
during this process amounted to paradigm shifts. The main impetus and anchoring factor
in this process was the school’s belief in inclusion of the people with disabilities in all
walks of life in the society at large.
The direction that the school was considered irrevocable but three years was not enoughfor all the questions to have been answered, which were raised in the beginning and later
throughout this journey. This report deals with some of the answers that were found to
the question of transforming a special school into an inclusive school.
In an attempt to transform itself into an inclusive school, AADI school has made changes
in its policies, practices and culture which would facilitate inclusion of all children in theschool. Some such changes are- change in infrastructure/physical environment,- welcomed diversity in its school population by admitting diverse children,- school fee was made affordable,- school uniform was introduced,- safe and secure environment was ensured,- easy access to information on school policies,- support to staff for inclusion, nurturing leadership and form a new relationship with thecommunity etc,
- Providing a structured and stimulating environment,- Grouping children according to age rather than abilities,- Flexibility in seating in the class, choices and dialogues or classroom management,- Designing and developing a new curriculum to address diverse needs,- Addressing diversity in physical development/physical education vs. therapy,- Planning for differentiation, delivery or instruction for addressing diversity,- Participatory evaluation of learning, unresolved questions, teachers learning andchanging, involvement of all stakeholders, basic necessities/practicing basic humanenorms/practicing inclusive behavioural norms/reinforcing norms for treating individuals
in an open environment etc.
POLICIES
Appropriate infrastructure/physical environment
The very first changes needed in the new inclusive set up were to create an accessible
environment, by altering the infrastructure of the school. There was a need for much22

bigger classrooms to accommodate up to twenty-five children and that meant making
adaptations in the existing physical infrastructure, because the school was originallydesigned for a special school with small classrooms. Building alterations were planned
and the changes took place during the summer vacations.
The school already had many accessible features but it needed further changes toaccommodate all types of disabilities. Thus an access audit was undertaken following
which the school has implemented seventy six percent of its recommendations. Fully
accessible play equipment was also installed in the school lawns.
Welcoming diversity in its school population
Shifting from its earlier focus of only working with children with cerebral palsy and otherneurological conditions AADI, chose to adopt an admission policy which deliberatelysought diversity in its population. It opened its doors to non disabled children andchildren across disabilities. It also included children marginalized due to gender andeconomic factors.
The policy aimed to enrol at least fifty percent girls, and took a decision to have amaximum of 25% children with different types of disabilities in each class. It was
decided that seventy five percent of the student population would belong to a lower
income group, while the rest would be from any income group but preference would begiven to children with severe disabilities who would be denied admission elsewhere.
Another exception to the income criterion was for families having two children withdisabilities. The earlier division based on severity and type of disability was later dropped
and the only new criteria were age and residence, because the school would now cater tochildren residing within a five- to- seven- kilometre radius around the school. A new
detailed admission form was worked out that reflected the new policies.
Earlier being a special school, catering to the needs of a certain type of disability(cerebral palsy and neurological), the school now admitted only forty to fifty students at atime, who fitted into this category. In April 2007, AADI School had one hundred andseven children with diverse needs, on rolls, as compared to fifty two children in its lastyear as a special school.
In March 2006, the admission policy was reviewed and based on the survey results, it
was realised that the number of non-disabled out of school children was much higher thanchildren in the area from which students were admitted with disability. They therefore
decided to reduce the radius of the area for admission from five to four kilometres. It wasalso decided to screen out children whose medical condition may not allow them to copewith the daily routine of the school.
Seeking children
To ensure admission of a diverse population the school had to proactively seek children.
Earlier, the school had never advertised for school admissions and there was a waiting list23

of children who were admitted in the months of March as there were always fewer seatsavailable for students. In the inclusive school, first an attempt was made to enrol children
with different disabilities. Different agencies 9 providing services to young children withdisabilities were encouraged to refer children with various disabilities for admission in
Nursery, KG and class I. In October 2004, twenty one children with various disabilities10
were admitted but the majority of the children admitted were children with Cerebral
Palsy. In the second year the response of children with disabilities was not so
encouraging and only three children with disability were admitted, while in the third year,
five children with disabilities were admitted. Therefore the ratio between disabled andnon-disabled students kept varying every year. The team made an attempt to maintain acertain proportion of children with disabilities in each class which would not have beenless than if it were still running a special school. They have managed to do this in all theyears and classes except the nursery of 2006.
There was a progressive increase in the number of non disabled children getting enrolled
over the three years. In April 2005, twenty- one children were enrolled, in the second
year, the response from the non- disabled children was better than the previous year. In
April 2007 thirty six children were enrolled and for the first time, all the seats in nursery
were full and the number of non-disabled children seeking admission had also increased
as community people were get to know about the school.
The school decided to conduct an advertising and publicity campaign for seeking
admission of non-disabled children. A cable advertising campaign was organised for one
month. Many parents were sent letters informing them about vacancies in the school andthus on the whole, the admission process was relatively easy for all parents. Researchteam also made some visits to individual households in the community to identify thetarget areas as well as to understand the common concerns of the parents such as school
fees, transport and medium of instruction.
AADI team decided to organise a street play to raise awareness about the meaning of
good holistic education and to collaborate with AADI to realize the dream of providing
holistic education to all the children in its neighbourhood.
Admitting children
The school also attempted to ensure the admission procedures were easily accessible anduser - friendly. Selection of children based on the ‘distance from school” criterion createdsome frustration among families living beyond 6-7 km radius of AADI because of
inadequate services available for children with disabilities. Many parents offered to pay
donations so that their child would get admissions. Others were ready to move theirresidences to fit into their admission criteria, to get their children with disabilities
admitted.
9

NIPCCD and SAF, NAB, AIIMS, Ali Yavar Jung
One visually challenged child was sent by Jeevan Jyoti, there were some ‘severely’ mentally challenged
children, some children with epilepsy/fits, some hearing impaired children, and for the first time there wasa child with Autism.

1024Admission Drive
With the help of street theatre experts from an NGO called Pravah AADI conceptualiseda street play (nukkad natak). A selected group of staff and students started practising. It
was great fun as well learning. Initially we were all very shy and slowly we started
growing into it. One of the students who refused to participate initially soon became theloudspeaker of the group. Finally one fine winter morning we set out on the streets of
Gautam Nagar calling people from the streets, homes and shops to collect and listen towhat we had to say. There was a mix of thrill and fear in our hearts. But people didcollect and did listen to us. After the first success there was no stopping us and we went
to several areas over the next few weekends. Everyday was a new story, at times we had
to postpone the street play due to fog, sometimes we had to walk in narrow muddy streetsof slums and some days gargle to keep the voice going. We carried banners, posters andhandbills to inform people about AADI school .We also put up a board of AADI School
and a banner to announce opening of admissions, outside our building.

Many parents of non disabled children after realising that their children would be
studying with children with disability did not come back. Many parents preferred ofpulling out their wards, even after paying the admission fees. On the other hand someparents chose to admit their children into the school because their disabled or non
disabled siblings were a part of the school. In all, there were fourteen such pairs. There
are four children who have siblings with disabilities in the school and ten children who
have non -disabled siblings in the school. They chose to admit them in the same school sothat it would be convenient for parents to pick up and drop their children to school.
However, many parents who were open to idea of disabled and non disabled children
studying together, preferred not to get their children admitted because of the fact that theschool is a Hindi medium school.
Making it affordable/School fees
To ensure access to the school, attempts were made to make the school fee affordable forall. In the special school, the fees consisted of mainly transport and development charges
and ranged from three to eight hundred rupees. With the changes in the school, it was
decided that children belonging to families with a monthly income of five thousand or
below would be given a free ship but make a one time payment of hundred to two fifty
rupees. The admission fee was later fixed at hundred rupees for all. Families belonging toan income group of rupees five thousand to ten thousand would have to pay rupees threehundred for development charges and three hundred for transport charges monthly. This
was later changed to three hundred rupees. Families belonging to the income category ofabove Rs. 10, 000/- would have to pay Rs. 800/- per month which comprises threehundred for transport and five hundred for development charges. This was later changed
to five hundred rupees. Children who were not able to pay were sponsored. In April 2006,
in line with the Delhi Govt. norms, it was decided to follow free ship for students comingfrom families whose monthly income is below Rs 5000/-. However the team decided it
would charge Rs 100/- for those who were using school transport.
25

Reaffirming school Identity/School Uniform
To reiterate that all children belonged to the same school, by visibly emphasising theschool identity over the other identities of the child, the team took a decision to introduce
a school uniform for the first time. Earlier in the special school, children didn’t wear any
uniform.
Managing the Drop-out Children
As a special school AADI never faced the problem of managing the school dropouts. Asa special school, ever since it began, there was a long list of parents with children withdisabilities, waiting for admission. Thus there was never any concern about children notcontinuing in the school. However the situation changed drastically in the inclusive
school setup. Till date over fifteen non - disabled and seven disabled children have madea decision not to continue coming to AADI School or have been shifted out to basic
services. The reasons for not continuing in school range from parents having problems
with the Hindi medium of the school, that their children were being neglected in theschool and finally their dissatisfaction with the teaching methodology adopted by theschool. Thus eleven non disabled children out of fifteen admitted have shifted to otherschools while four others have reportedly shifted out of the city. Out of the nine disabledchildren three have been shifted to alternative basic services because of medical reasons
as children were falling sick and they were not able to cope up with class activities. One
child left due to medical reasons, another child couldn’t continue because of his/hermother’s health, while another two were not satisfied with the quality of services.
AADI School has evolved a policy of following up and trying to find out the reasons forchildren dropping out. If the school is unable to contact the parents on the phone, theyusually send a letter stating that the seat is being given to another child. In case ofchildren being shifted out to another service, usually meetings have been called and at
first, the number of days the child was coming to school have been reduced. Then, later,
if the child was observed to be still not being able to adjust, the option of shifting thechild was considered and the decision was shared with the parents.
A safe and secure environment
The need for a safe and secure environment emerged as a policy area. Earlier the school
never faced anxiety about children who would wander out of the school or run around theschool at free will. The safety and security policy was designed which emphasised thephysical safety and the psycho social security of the children. Security of the premises
and safety during travel and transfers was also ensured.
To ensure safety identity cards were issued to all students, strict rules for dropping andpicking up children have been put in place; increased vigilance at the beginning and endof the day and free play, first aid training was given to the transport staff. Attention was
paid to use safe teaching material in the class rooms e.g. to use blunt knives/ safety26scissors and safer options for putting up charts on cork board. Sanitized toys and teachingaids were used in classes.
Easy access to information on school policies
The school provided all students at the time of admission with diaries which havecompiled school rules and regulations printed in it. Information about policies was being
included in the diary and a prospectus. Towards the end of the project, an administrative
manual for an inclusive school was also complied which contained all the policies of theschool.
In July 2005 some (36%) parents stated that they had read school policies written in thestudent diaries. Others (36%) generally said they are aware of policies regarding leave
holiday but some (28%) said that they don’t know much about school policies. Some said
they didn’t know what are activities or timetable of the school. While in July 2007, 86
percent of the parents interviewed stated they were familiar with the school policies andonly 7% each, stated they knew some of the policies or didn’t know much about thepolicies.
Support to staff for inclusion
Being a special school AADI had only special educators, but with the changed set up
there was a need for the skills of general educators in the team. Thus general educatorseven if they had no previous experience of teaching children with disabilities were
included as new team members. Initiatives were taken to welcome new members. New
staff was given an orientation by introducing them to various programs in theorganization on the visitor’s day.
The new school required intensive planning and reflection from the teachers. For teachersa weekday would begin at 8:30 a.m. with the transfer of children from the van to theclassrooms and ended at to 2:30 in the afternoon. They also worked for two days in aweek till 4:00pm and on two Saturdays. This time was not adequate for planning so toprovide more time for these activities, it was decided to keep the last working day of
every month closed for the children so that teachers could get more time for planning,
documentation and monthly reflection meetings. It was also decided that children would
also leave fifteen minutes early every day to give time to staff for daily reflection.
To assist teachers in planning and addressing children’s needs, a resource room wasorganised. The resource room had teaching material and educational aids which werereviewed and systematized for ease of issuing. Teachers appreciated the resource room,
teaching aids and books available for teaching
To address the issues that came up in the new school, teachers were provided training for
upgrading and learning the new skills. Training was provided on enhancing
communication skills and for addressing needs of children with Autism and speech
impairments. As a part of training, teachers visited other organizations like BODH. NTT

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teachers were provided with opportunities to attend lectures about different types of
disabilities and for addressing diversity in their classes.
In the new setup, initially teachers were feared of chaos caused by children runningaround but later on, teachers stated that they faced problems in classroom management
only when there was a shortage of volunteers, as it required them to take out time forchildren who needed one to one attention. They said they felt helpless when there was no
physical support in the class as many children with disabilities need individual attention.
This support was provided by assigning helpers in each class. Eight to ten children wereassigned to one teacher and there was one therapist for fifteen children. Volunteers are an
integral part of the classes and have been an invaluable support.
Nurturing leadership
To resolve the issues that come up due to inclusive education class conferences wereorganised by the school, where all team members are able to discuss issues, resolve
confusions and develop a common understanding within the team. Some of the issues
which were discussed were about grouping, physical layout of classes, feedback on theadaptations made in the toilets, TLMs, play equipment etc. The frequency of thesemeetings depended on the teacher’s needs.
Team also got inputs on weekly basis when they submitted their planning registers to theheadmistress who would then give comments and feedback. The supervisors also
undertook observation of classes to assist in resolving issues though there was no set
frequency. Besides this team members were encouraged to talk to the headmistress in her
office whenever there was a need to do so. This arrangement made the relations withseniors very informal and working in the organization a pleasant experience.
The process of staff appraisals also changed in the new setup, it became moreparticipatory. AADI School also developed its own staff appraisal forms with theparticipation of all staff members. Each person rated four people- self, the program
manager, and two other members that they work closely with. Each person's ratings werethen shared individually followed by a discussion on their strengths and weaknesses. The
team reports that “It was a useful exercise as there was a positive feedback from moststaff members. Most were very forth coming in discussing their weak areas. There wereremarkable changes noticed in a few people after the appraisal session”.
A new relationship with the community
The relationship of the school and the community also changed in the new setup. Besides
addressing educational needs of all children, the school also attempted to identify new
partners and redefine its relations with other schools. In the earlier setup children fromnearby schools (Spring Dales, St. Mary’s and Sardar Patel) would often visit the school
but mainly because it was a special school. Children from AADI School were invited for
painting competitions and annual functions to other schools. Due to linkages with otherschools, children got an opportunity to participate in competitions and interact with otherchildren and learn more social skills.

28

The relationships with other schools had changed considerably. The first step in thisdirection was establishing linkages with two schools keeping in mind future transitions ofchildren in these schools. Efforts were also made to create a sense of togetherness
amongst children by providing and creating opportunities for interaction with otherschool children. For instance Children’s day and Christmas celebrations were organisedalong with students of Father Agnel School. Children from Nursery and KG classes
participated in the centenary celebration of Montessori Schools at Mira Nursery in
February 07. This was the first time that they performed outside the school premises in
unfamiliar surroundings, for an unfamiliar audience. Similar interactive activities were
held with the children of Indian School also.
It continued seeking volunteers from the community, as in the special school and thethree inclusive classes initially were extensively supported by ten volunteers. The schoolsorganised meetings with volunteers to elicit needs and meetings once in two months. The
teachers shared with the volunteers the objectives and plans for the class in each term andalso explained their roles to enhance their involvement. It began celebrating volunteer’s
Day to acknowledge their support.
The school was a recognised as a special school by the government but the changes in theschool made the management initiate a process of recognition from the Directorate of
Education rather than the earlier ministry it was working with. The changes in the school
meant a change in the category of the school in the government classification system andit aims to be recognised as a primary school and to place itself in the general education
system.
PRACTICES AND CULTURE: To promote inclusive practices and culture in
AADI School
Teaching Practice in the inclusive school was initially stated to be influenced byconstructivist perspective. The aim was that teachers become facilitators and help
children learn in a non competitive environment. Towards the end of the project, theteam came to believe that rather than following dogmatically / rigidly any one approach,what was required was child - centred practices and an amalgamation of approaches
could be applied to reach each child. Everything seemed to be moving towards children
taking a more active part in their learning or towards child - centred practices and theteacher becoming a facilitator.
Structured stimulating environment
Teachers in their attempts to address diverse children in their class decided to create aplay corner in each of the classes for independent play and a cosy reading corner in thelibrary. Teachers mentioned that the attached courtyard ensures not only space for play
but also provide opportunities for quick nature related activities or kinaesthetic
experience of teaching concepts without too much of movement or wastage of time. Lessof clutter, removal of unnecessary furniture, justified use of walls, side racks and keeping
the working area obstacle free enhances smooth transitions. Having theme boards,
stringed and board for displaying children’s work makes the class attractive and29

informative for students”. Along with these changes, teachers also created a ‘nonstimulation’ room for individual sessions with very distractible students. Anotherstimulation room for visual and tactile stimulation was also set up for those at variancefrom majority of students in the class. This is a dark room with a variety of light fitted on
the walls at different levels for different purposes for e.g. to develop visual fixation andtracking. Mats of different texture have also been placed to provide tactile stimulation11.
Grouping children according to age rather than abilities
In the new inclusive set up in August 2006 there were nineteen to twenty five children(with disabilities) in classes in comparison to the maximum of four to five children withdisabilities in a class, in the special school setup, who were taught very intensively.
Children were divided into small groups and there were no classes as such. This was
because one child was studying Hindi of first class, Maths of second class and English of
third class.
In the new inclusive setup classes have been organised age wise. The Nursery age group
was between three plus and four plus and the KG age group was between four plus andfive plus. The children in class one were between five plus and six plus. Initially teachersorganized their class children into groups of up to five children based on the curriculum
they followed in a practice similar to the earlier practice of grouping children according
to their cognitive abilities. In class one four students were in academic group and two
were in the sensory group. Children followed activities according to the groups they werein. Thus children who are in academics attend the main assembly and the other two attend
the nursery –KG assembly. The Nursery class had three groups. Two groups consisted ofseven children with two children with disabilities whose level of disability was stated tobe ‘mild’. The other five children were subdivided in three groups and belong to the‘severe to profound’ categories of disabilities. In KG, children were divided into twogroups. One group comprised of children with mild disabilities and non disabled children
and the other group of three children belonging to the ‘severe to profound’ category.
Suggestion to address the entire class as a single group, and organise heterogeneousgroups while adapting activities and accommodating individual needs led to somechanges in these arrangements, especially while doing collaborative work.
Flexibility in seating in the class
The team had previous experience in designing furniture to suit the needs of children withcerebral palsy but for the new setup it surveyed classroom furniture in several schools
before arriving at the final design about the type of furniture to be used in the newclassrooms. It finally decided to build trapezoid shaped tables that could be used forgroups of two, three, six or twelve children as per the need. This was decided keeping in
mind that the design would promote peer interaction and support as well as the fact that11

The team also consulted Dr. Suchu Rajshekharan, a specialist in low vision rehabilitation from Shroff
Charitable Eye Hospital.

30

the furniture would be easy for the children to move themselves for different types ofactivities (individual, paired, small groups).
Choices and Dialogues or Classroom management
Discipline was an issue in the new set up. Teachers shared that children had become very
comfortable and free as teachers gave them freedom because of the objective of creatinga fearless environment, but maintaining discipline became difficult. Teachers were
expected not to punish children and were expected to explain things to children in apositive manner. When teachers took students for functions in other schools, they noticed
that as other school children would sit and listen while they had to run around after theirchildren. Teams also questioned whether too much liberty was being given to children,which was not happening in other schools. Teams also faced difficulties incommunicating with non-verbal children as the children responded depending on theirmoods and would keep shouting in class.
Over time, things have improved and there was a considerable increase in theparticipation of students. Teachers have become more aware about the children’s right tohave a say in the activities they were doing. Teachers have learnt to give choices tochildren and ask for students’ suggestions about the activities and games they would liketo play. In instances where a child wanted to do sand play instead of what the teacher
might be doing with the whole class, the teacher learnt not to force the children and tried
doing the activity with them the next day. Previously, there was the need to control theclass as is the conventional practice but now a teacher states “I let go and give children
more freedom and independence to discipline themselves. More choices are given tochildren even if that means making changes in planned activity.” Interactions withstudents have become more of dialogue than direct commands. Children were able toraise their voices, and shared opinions freely. Children have been given more
opportunities to make decisions about themselves and while working in a group.
Teachers have consciously offered children choices to increase their participation in daily
activities and this has also led to an increase in their confidence.
Teams have learnt to make rules in consultation with children rather than imposing ruleson them. A teacher stated that class rules are framed by the students and their
participation is valued. The team shared that once when there was no physical help in theclass, then the children were asked how they would manage and they said they would
take care of themselves and take care of others also. Teachers thus encouraged selfdiscipline amongst children. Teachers attempted to build a rapport with students first to
succeed in building confidence among children. Teachers also used the strategy of
appointing children as monitors of the class who then helped during lunchtime. In thisway the teachers made children responsible for cleanliness and discipline.
At the end of two years, teachers felt it was evident by the children’s behaviour that they
were learning in a fearless environment. Teachers felt that a fearless environment is awell practiced reality that encourages children to express themselves spontaneously.
Some students have become quite independent not only in doing their own work but also

31

working within small groups and pairs. The acceptance levels of teachers by children
with severe disability and their interaction levels had gone up. Children feel free to speak
their minds in front of the teachers and therapist.
Majority of the teachers (86%) felt that their relationship with children had changed overthe past two years. Teachers made an effort to build a rapport with children and presented
a friendly, easy going and easy to approach demeanour. Children feel free to ask
questions teachers, related to class or any other things. Teachers felt children were fondof them and sometime they didn’t want to go home.
A new curriculum to address diverse needs
Previously AADI being a special school, a non-formal curriculum, a grade level
curriculum as in the private schools and an open school curriculum was followed in theschool. The non formal curriculum comprises a list of concepts and varying levels within
the concepts which had to be followed. Teachers were following the course which wasdeveloped for a group of children, according to their needs. Teaching aids, worksheets foreach and every child are made while keeping in mind his/ her needs and level ofunderstanding/level. In formal school, children were studying in classes II, IV, V, VII and
CBSE curriculum was followed. For them there were fixed timetables and evaluation
system was followed same as of CBSE (unit tests, two midterms).
The syllabus included value education that provided the scope to discuss values, genderdifferences and cleanliness. Some of the topics which were also covered were shopping
skills, use of calculator, sight words( toilet, etc.), bank operations, social skills, themes
like Delhi (which includes making children participate in utilising services available,
visiting historical places etc. and other activities like paintings and participating in
project Tiger.
In the inclusive setting, there was a need for a new curriculum framework which made it
possible to address the diverse needs of all children in the school. To understand andincrease the preparedness level of staff for formal education, an orientation to philosophyof education was held. Curricula of different organizations like Bodh Shiksha, NCERT,
pre-primary curriculum etc. have been reviewed. Various desirable elements which could
be incorporated into the curriculum were identified and incorporated. The exercise
involved all the teachers and later on a working group was organised, to take it forward.
This involvement also helped the staff to focus on the critical issues related to childdevelopment and addressing the learning of diverse learners. After searching many
avenues for an already existing suitable curriculum, the team decided to formulate theirown curriculum for the Nursery, KG and Class I.
The new curriculum had adopted the constructivist approach, emphasising on aspects lie
holistic education, contextual learning, active learning, recognising developmental levels,
flexibility in the curriculum and the importance of play. The developmental stages it
adopted were socio emotional, language, cognitive and physical development. It is avertical and a horizontal progression in each area. The horizontal progression represents

32the developmental progress across ages, whereas vertical progression represents the subarea as well as the different aspects within it. Early sensory and physical milestones havebeen especially included in the curriculum keeping in mind the diversity within thegroup. Similarly alternate communication has been included within expressive language.
Different aspects of perceptual motor development (figure ground, form perception,
spatial relations, vestibular and proprioceptive) formed the basis of all learning andtherefore have not been mentioned separately. Attention, memory and thinking skills
have been included in the cognitive area but since they are the primary processes
necessary for all areas of development they are reflected in every aspect. These cognitive
processes can only be understood through their observable manifestations like making a
choice after using reasoning.
Based on this curriculum the team developed rubrics for every item. The team also felt it
would be useful to split the curriculum and the rubrics into three sub sections that is, prenursery, nursery and KG. As the classes progressed the team thinking about the primarysections, decided to use SCERT books being used in government schools at primary level
as they felt they are well conceptualised in Hindi and yet low cost.
Teachers felt the curriculum was very good and elaborate. They felt that in comparison toother school there was lot of freedom and flexibility in following the curriculum.
Teachers preferred the activity based method being followed in the school.
Addressing diversity in physical development
Therapy had to change and adapt itself a great deal in the new set up. Initially, thetherapist felt that it was impossible to work with children with disabilities and non
disabled children together at the same time. Physical activities like running which wereappropriate for non-disabled children had no relevance for children with disabilities. The
therapist also felt that quality was deteriorating and some children needed to be taken outof the class, as they needed specific therapeutic inputs.
From gross motor focused on therapeutic inputs, it became physical education and about
games and having fun. Earlier, therapy used to be conducted separately, so the class used
to get disturbed but now, therapists work in the class, so it is helpful for both teachers andstudents as the child is not disturbed and teachers get help from therapist. Teachers andtherapists began planning and evaluating children together, which also made a difference.
Sometimes, the therapist felt that the professional lines between therapists and educators
were blurring. Planning for physical education required a lot of creativity and thinking on
the part of teachers and therapists. To assist in the planning for diverse groups of children
including all therapeutic objectives in physical education classes, a framework ofphysical education was prepared. The therapist gave more freedom to serve children than
before, while still ensuring safety.
The team frequently questioned as to what was the meaning of the concept of inclusive
therapy and the issue still remains a challenge for the team as the qualifying courses do
not equip the therapists to work in inclusive settings. Teams shared that some children’s

33goals would not be achieved only through physical education. And severely physicallydisabled children need intensive therapy for which there was a need to work out
alternatives.
Planning for differentiation
In the special school set up the special educators had to plan for only five to six children.
In the inclusive school, teachers had to do a lot of planning and teams felt that theyneeded to set goals for each day. Prior planning was essential to address the diverse needsof children and the time needed for planning increased because of the number of children
and the diversity in the class including different types of disabilities.
Teachers started planning at three levels. In the beginning of the year, they plan for six
months and divide the syllabus into months and weeks. Then they plan for a week inadvance on a weekly basis where they design daily lessons plans. They maintain a recordof their daily plans, topics covered, methods utilized and evaluation of the lessons andchildren’s responses. Teachers felt a need to break up and organise the syllabus into
manageable sections to facilitate short term planning and they worked in small groups fora month to write samples which were shared with the larger groups. Teachers alsocommented that rigidity in planning was not possible as many things changed based onchildren’s views of what they wanted to do.
While planning daily lessons, the teacher focused not only on content, methodology andmaterials but also on individual needs (aids, extra support, adaptations andaccommodations) within the group processes. During content planning there is a variationof simple and concrete concepts relevant for some students and complex and abstract
concepts for others. During planning teachers organized resources according to the topics
they were teaching, as they preferred to provide children with concrete examples eventhough it wasn’t always easy. They spent a lot of time searching for different materials to
make the lesson plans easier for children and sometimes prepare charts at home for theirlessons.
In the second year of the new inclusive setup, the team reviewed the old lesson planningformat and devised a new format in which the planning section had been divided into
three sub sections – introduction, main activity and closure. Likewise the evaluation
section had also been divided into three sub section – child specific, group process andteachers learning/ outcome. A draft format was made and tried out by all teachers for two
weeks and changes were made based on feedback received. Teachers felt that too muchtime was spent in writing the format every time so they decided to print lesson plan books
for the school. Mock sessions were held to practice the use of new format and also toresolve the difficulties faced by some teachers in using it. In the inclusive school set up,teachers have begun co-planning, while in the earlier scenario special educators / teachers
were planning and thinking in isolation.

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Delivery or Instruction for addressing diversity
In the inclusive school a major change in the role of the teacher was that she became afacilitator of children’s learning. For them teaching now meant gaining, an insight into
skills, understanding relationships, trying new ideas and bringing about changes. Theirrole was to ensure that each child learnt whatever they were teaching and they all seemedvery earnest about their work. Teachers became aware and conscious that directive
teaching strategies led to an authoritarian teaching style. While the constructivist
approach advocated that teachers should attempt to create an environment where they are
facilitators of children’s learning. Thus teaching style was a result of the orientation andphilosophy about teaching and children. Teachers became more open to different
teaching styles.
There was a general acceptance amongst teachers of the fact that children had diverse
learning needs which required modifications in their teaching strategies. Teachers sharedthat they used “strategies which address diverse learning styles like combination ofvisuals, auditory mode of communication with tactile / kinaesthetic component.
Each and every child was given importance in the class and teachers made extensive
efforts at understanding the children’s diverse needs. Teachers shared their process oftrying to understand each child with other teachers. Initially, educators did not pay equal
attention to all children. Teachers gradually learnt to do this over a period of one year andgave same kind of attention to children with disabilities and non-disabled children.
In the inclusive school the teachers have adopted strategies for experiential learning andchildren were given more opportunities for self exploration there is an emphasis on the
belief that learning comes from action. The class environment had changed fromblackboard teaching, to activity based teaching, one to one sessions and dependency on
volunteers to group work. Some things have remained the same like a sequential
introduction of concepts at concrete level, followed by semi concrete and abstract levels.
To make teaching activity-based, teachers used teaching aids extensively. The teamcreated a lot of charts and worksheets for teaching early concepts, stories and rhymes.
The team also decided to compile worksheets used during the year in the form of
workbooks for each child which could be shared with parents who valued the record of
the children’s performance during the year. These compiled workbooks were used in thenext year also for the next batch of the children with new editions and changes wherever
required. The workbooks have been organised in a sequence of increasing order ofdifficulty in concepts. In the last year, these workbooks have been printed for children’s
use even though it was difficult to prepare these worksheets as some levels would require
one-word answers, while another would require lengthy answers and another would
require multiple answers.
There was an emphasis on teaching being meaningful or purposeful and an understandingthat it would become so only if teaching was contextual. Thus the school felt that thefamily context was important and staff was required to make home visits to understand35

children’s environment. Teachers made home visits for all children. This ensured thatchildren became open and also helped in understanding the context or the social
background of students. Non verbal children also shared news by bringing written news
from their homes. Teachers also attempted to make teaching meaningful by explaining
the objective or purpose of the activities to children. They chose topics according to theprevailing seasons etc. Teachers also attempted to make children learn more about theirneighbouring community by organising visits and outings in these areas, for instance a
visit to a local vegetable shop or the milk booth or Gurudwara. These visits while helping
the children to know about their community also created awareness in the community
about inclusive education.
In the special school, there was an emphasis on individual sessions with fewer group
activities but in the new set up there was great emphasis laid on collaborative learning.
Working in small groups eased the task of instruction delivery, addressing every student
and also enhanced their social skills. The quieter ones felt more at ease in smaller groups
and gradually opened out to express their views or relate experiences. Smaller groups
also were more tolerant and sensitive to the needs of their disabled peer. They took an
earnest interest and shared and helped the disabled child to share his experiences in thesmall group.
At times, the formation of groups was done by the teachers and at other times children
formed their own groups. Teachers made subgroups which were given names based on
the current theme to develop an identity and belongingness. To ensure familiarity among
students, teachers frequently changed the seating arrangement. AAC, physical, verbal
prompts, gestures, visual representation of concepts are used to ensure equal level ofparticipation of non verbal students. Peer facilitators are assigned to help students who
have difficulties. however implementing these changes was not easy. For instance, a few
among the disabled children were so used to one-on-ones that getting them accustomed togroup seating itself was a milestone. There were trying times when a child would howl &holler continuously disrupting group activities and one had to pull out the child withinminutes of group seating. But persistence and consistency in including the child regularly
and increasing the time duration of group seating gradually paid off. Similarly getting
such a child to participate in the group activity again was a Herculean task or so it
seemed at the onset. So getting the child to make eye contact with his peer group, pass onor accept a toy from his immediate partner or make a reciprocatory gesture were one of
the first successful strides into participative group activity. Also a child that was so used
to one-on-one interactions could simply not concentrate on the group activity. The childwould get continuously distracted by sounds & actions of his peer group & getting line tofocus on the actual activity was difficult task. These often culminated in failed group
participation or in a dormant participation. After many counselling/ admonishingsessions, did the child concentrate on the group activity and participate in it too.”
Initially, collaborative work through the formation of groups in class was a matter ofsome concern for teachers. It was felt that children were not able to function
independently in groups. There were some children who would not sit. Teachers didn’t
have duplicate material and children fought for material. Children would see their own

36

work and would not bother about others. Difficulty was felt in making groups also
because children would get distracted and begin fighting amongst themselves. Children
who were quiet got left out while in larger group teachers felt they could facilitate thediscussion and have activities which have outcomes.
Teaches had also raised the issue of children feeling left out when their peers work much
faster or finishing the work themselves. This issue got resolved when students were madeinto small groups. It was also realized that the task has to be appropriate and children
may take time to develop a familiarity or comfort to work in groups and may be initiallythey needed to do activities like story telling, which involved more dialogue and lessmaterial and where children learnt to listen to others. Teachers felt that children had
become familiar with working in groups and group presentations were handled with ease.
Children were observed to be working quietly in their groups. In groups if they fight, theylose stars so now children have learnt how to solve their own problems.
Peer facilitation was a common strategy adopted in all classroom, play, extracurricular
activities. Earlier peer facilitation was an alien practice. Small groupings and theinclusion of the disabled in the group seating sowed the seeds of peer facilitation. Earliera child who was quick at finishing his work used to be busy in distracting one and all in
his classroom, but now the same child will be busy in helping and facilitating his peer
partner in completing an activity or project. This child also then takes on the facilitator’srole in coaxing and reactivating a shier, quieter child to share his thoughts or express
himself. Peer facilitation now is the main stay. Peer facilitation also helped in addressing
the student’s at extreme levels like by involving the brightest student in helping otherpeer or taking a revision class with peers (acting as a teacher). Teachers felt that the classenvironment had changed due to inclusion of all children who read, played, and ate
together.
The initial reaction of the special educators to the change in school was, to try andaddress the needs of all children as they did in the special education or school setup. The
same approach would be applied to a larger number of children. Special educators knew
how to address any child’s need but believed they were more effective in individual
sessions. Being the dominant group they continued to plan accordingly and the general
educator were kept busy getting to learn what special educators knew. Thus they kept
reporting what they learnt about conditions etc. The NTT were a very small group
amongst the dominant special educator’s stronghold.
But with continuous dialogue between special educators and NTT, both started seeing
each other's strength, and began to work together. Whole class began to be seen as one
group of children whom the teachers needed to address together. Not only therapists andteachers were inter-linking, but class’s domestic support was also taken as a resource.
Activities were shared with them, given in Hindi (written) and they were told how tocarry on individual sessions or how they can assist during group/ collaborative activities.
Emphasis on collaboration in teaching increased in the inclusive set up. There was a lotof sharing which led to a feeling of bonding and togetherness amongst the team and37

people did not feel alone while taking this journey. The positive professional
relationships also filtered into the personal domain and it helped people perform better.
They also realized the extent of diversity among the staff. Within the program somepeople experienced the journey more directly and some people were seemingly outside ofthis journey. Though initially this led to feelings of the first group being more important,over a period of time the processes filtered through the entire school.
Participatory Evaluation of learning
In the special school set-up evaluation used to be twice a year in terms of goal planningand review. Teachers made make six monthly goals and there were no formal exams andonly class tests were held. Evaluation was subjective i.e. if a child failed in understanding
any concept then the teacher used to take that concept again. They had case conferencesin which goals were set. They called parents and along with them teachers, principles,
therapist and social workers discussed the condition of the child and teachers updated
them with the learning of their child and shared other information with them. In the new
set up also case conferences continue to be held for children with disability. A teacher
stated that she had completed five case conferences of six children with her. In special
school for formal stream they had fixed timetables and evaluation system which followed
the CBSE pattern (unit tests, two midterms).Children’s progress-Earlier formal exams
were held once a terms. Lately half yearly exams are held. Till class five there were noformal exams. Class tests were held and class assessments were also conducted. Openschool exams were held according to their schedule.
As in the special school, in the new inclusive school teachers build in assessment andevaluation in their daily teaching and try to assess how much has each child listened andunderstood the concept they were teaching. Thus ongoing assessment also is an integral
part of evaluating children’s performance. At the end of the week based on theevaluation, teachers revised on what they have taught. Students were evaluated in a groupor in small groups, rather than individually. Regarding evaluation, the teams shared thatobservation is not comprehensive so at the end of group work ask children to present sothey get a chance to evaluate. The team felt there was a need to have a blend of all types
of work. So if the teacher knows that a child does not respond in a larger group, then theteacher should make it a point to take some time out and then asks questions separately.
The team has designed rubrics which have assisted them in redesigning the nature ofassessments. Teachers also continue to use worksheets, activities like quiz competitionand evaluate orally through questions and discussions. They were expected to record on adaily basis their plans and evaluation of each child.
In the new inclusive setup, the students’ evaluation saw many changes. The teamdeveloped rubrics for every component (excepting physical) of Nursery KG curriculum.
Besides this a comprehensive students progress reports ware designed. The team also
reviewed and methods of recording individual child progress at class room level which
resulted in a monthly grid to chart the progress of every child in different areas ofdevelopment.

38

The report card had a personal development component written in Hindi. AADI School
also ensured that progress of children was shared with parents through these written
reports for increased parent participation in the process of monitoring their child’s
progress. The team designed a grid related to child’s progress in different domains anddecided to call each parent to fill the grid along with the teacher. This exercise brought ina lot of information related to the child, which was not known earlier to both the teacher
and parent.
Teachers were reasonably satisfied with the progress made by their children and agreed
that the learning outcomes for children had improved. They defined the improvement was
not just in academic terms but viewed the outcomes more holistically. Teachers also feltthat children were learning more effectively in the inclusive set up as they were learningfrom each other, from the environment and from teachers. Children were also becoming
more empathic towards each other's needs.
Unresolved questions
Inclusive education although has got many advantages, yet there are certain issues likeinvolving children, who were totally disinterested in taking part in planned activities,
decreased pace of teaching, which leads to the feeling of low accomplishment among
teachers etc. Another major concern was inclusion of children with severe disabilities invarious class room activities remained unresolved. Children with severe disability arecurtailed of participating in main activities of the class or were made to participate
passively or would get neglected. They still remain segregated within the class as
separate activities and individual sessions have been taken to address their needs.
Teachers believed that cognitive inclusion was not happening though social interaction
and other kinds of inclusion may be happening. Teachers felt that these children might
have learnt more if given individual focus for them. With this belief teachers hadorganized a stimulation room for some children. Others felt that this provision was better
even though it was segregated because the child was getting inputs and it was better thansitting at home. Even though their needs are different but children have learnt from peerinteraction, their environment and physical help. The issue is difficult and there are no
readymade answers available. On the other hand the team also analysing, whether they
were achieving the potential academics levels of all children, whether they could satisfy
the needs of the non-disabled children. Balancing both the levels was a challenging task
and children were gaining but there was a dilemma as teachers felt that children could
learn much more.
Teachers learning and changing
However on the whole all the teachers felt that their skills as teachers have increased
during the project duration. They gained greater confidence of addressing the diverse
needs of children in their class, there is an increased comfort level in an inclusive class,there is reportedly an increase in the ability to build open relationships with young
children, an increased ability to try new things and experiment and ability to games andactivities. Special educators also developed the ability to address larger classrooms.

39Teachers’ readiness to use technology has improved. Teachers learnt to acknowledge
each child's needs; they were able to communicate better and were able to take feedback
constructively. Teachers’ ability in analytical thinking and problem solving has
improved.
Reflection meetings, class conferences and reading new books have helped in improving
teachers’ knowledge of teaching methods. General educators reported an increased ability
to address needs of children with disabilities
The project has helped teachers to understand the concept of inclusive education. Earlier,inclusion meant having assembly/ circle time together or having lunch and outings
together. But now inclusion ranges from sharing the same classroom table top activities,
executing the same activity collaboratively, having a say and giving one’s opinion freely
with and among all children and adults to being a group leader/ class monitor/ peer
facilitator and getting into fist fights and quarrels with the peer group. For example, arather disruptive disabled child today works together in a collaborative group wherein his
disruptiveness is harnessed by his peer group. The peer group helps a child to do anactivity like colouring their drawings / sticking or pasting or learning paper into bits for acollage. The child in turn learns to listen to his peer group’s instructions and also gets tohave all the attention that he so craves for from one-to-one sessions. He also fulfils all his
objectives of his goal plans. So a collaborative activity in a class room takes care of allround development of a child be it cognitive, physical or social development and boosts
an add on – aesthetic development too.
Parents’ Perceptions
In August 2005, forty seven percent of the parents appreciated teaching in the school
because of the therapy inputs, the method of teaching which didn’t put too much stress on
the children and made children happy, the schools focus on social skills and values, theplay way method, the excursions and games, the student teacher interaction and theindividual attention.
Others (53%) were not so satisfied and while some said they didn’t know much about
what has happened with the child at school, a few parents stated that not much was
happening with their child and their child only played with some toys, slept and cameback home. Some parents felt the pace of teaching was very slow. Others stated that there
were no studies happening and children were only told stories and made to play. Many
were not satisfied with the Hindi medium of the school and other complained about thelack of attention to therapy. In July 2007 the opinions were very different and seventy
three percent of the parents interviewed appreciated teaching of the school and mainly
cited improvements in their children’s learning and teacher student interaction as thereasons for feeling so.
Three parents of children with disabilities stated that their child had benefited a lot frombeing in the school. Specifically a parent said that their child could now walk withsupport. Another said there were changes in the child and they followed the exercises and40the suggestions about diet regularly. Another parent stated that their child’s pronunciation
became clearer and another child was communicating more. Another said that their childwould recites poems at home and tells them what he had learnt and done at school.
One parent stated that they are not satisfied with the activities done in the school. They
had shared their dissatisfaction with the headmistress who had tried to convince theparents. One parent stated that the level of achievement of children in AADI School wascomparatively low when compared with other schools. For instance, they stated that their
younger child was able to recite the school phone numbers with their sibling in AADI
School couldn’t do the same though the child was older.
Some parents stated that goals were not reviewed and there was usually no improvement.
They rationalised that this may be due to the child’s ‘mental level’, which may be low.
Another parent also felt that the teachers were good but their child had limitations. They
stated that the child had not picked up anything in speech development areas also. One
parent said that the child who had been in AADI School for some time had not learnt any
manners. They stated that this was not the fault of the staff but it was the responsibility ofthe parents and staff to whatever faults a child had. Some said that if AADI School had
taught my child even a little, they would have preferred to keep their child in this school
but they didn’t teach her anything. Another reason given for pulling out the child is thatthe child had begun behaving in certain manner, which angered the parents very much.
Involvement of all stakeholders
Inclusion could not be limited to just children as it was applicable to all stakeholders thus
the school attempted in the new set up to increase involvement of all stakeholders in theschool. Parents were considered an important part of the school and various efforts weremade to increase their participation in the school in activities ranging from evaluation ofchildren to management of the school in an attempt to make them partners. In July 2005,
all the parents had stated that they liked coming to school which was a testimony of thewelcoming nature of the school. Parents felt welcomed and all the parents interviewed
stated that they were comfortable talking to teachers. All parents mentioned that the staff
was friendly, co-operative and behaved very well with them. Most teachers recognizedwhose parents they were and they were given importance, appreciated and respected in
the school. Others felt that staff understood their issues, problems, difficulties andsorrows. Many also liked the fact that they were explained things in a language they
understood. One parent stated that all parents were treated as equals by the school.
Involvement in the special school though had been limited to parents meetings whichwere held once in six months. Many parents used to come to leave and pick up theirchildren and during that time they talked about their problems and concerns with theteachers. The school policy also required that parents of new children initially should
accompany their children for some time.
In the beginning there was a very limited participation and in July 2005 parents (77%)
didn’t feel that the school encouraged them to get involved. During these interviews

41teachers had stated that parents were updated about children’s progress through reportcards. Some parents (37%) agreed with this and also said that they received daily
information about activities in the school through children’s diary. Others said exercises
were written and given to them and one mentioned that there were six monthly meetings
where the therapist, speech therapists meet but now all the staff had changed.
Some found a difference amongst teachers and felt one teacher was sharing while others
were not sharing. Another parent stated that they had met the class teacher but she was
new and did not know anything about the children. Parents stated that the improvementthat the child makes was not being shared. They were hesitant to go and watch thechildren in class and they felt the work was not reviewed as much as they would like.
After this feedback, the school involved parents considerably in assessments andevaluation of children’s learning to make them more comprehensive and objective. The
team decided to do this by filling up of the individual student grid together with parents.
Parents’ familiarity with the grid made the report card much more meaningful and it
reduced the teacher’s anxiety about report cards. Teachers included parent’s ideas, whichcame up during the discussions over the grid, in planning activities. Parents started
participating more earnestly in their child’s all round progress at home, a common link
was built between the classroom curriculum and real life experiences shared between
parent and child. Parents have become more aware about child’s present level of
performance & what next is to be worked on”. In a major turnaround almost 95% of theparents interviewed during July 2007, stated that they had discussed child’s /children’s
performance and 95% of them also stated that they did this on a monthly basis.
Based on parents’ feedback about the lack of information about classroom activities,
parents were invited on different days to observe in the classroom. For the first timeparents of non-disabled children could observe their children interacting with children
with disabilities in the classroom. Most of them had questions about the children withdisability and were happy that their children were studying with them. Some of them said
that they liked the activity based teaching. Some even appreciated that Hindi language
was being used in the class so parents find it easy to follow the work at home.
Another step towards increasing parent participation was to share monthly syllabus withparents at the beginning of the month. This helped them to be aware of the concepts thechild is learning and also reinforce them at home. The parents were also happy to receive
worksheet to do at home over the weekend. The section - wise syllabus was shared withparents and it has increased some parent’s interest and participation.
The frequency of parents meetings also changed when the school became an inclusive
school and meetings were held on a monthly basis. The team always tried to ensure thatparents were informed about activities and changes in AADI School. The team tried tocreate a sense of group feeling amongst parents by organising frequent meetings toprovide opportunities for bonding amongst parents. Teachers held one to one sessions
and larger issues were addressed in larger meetings. Earlier in the meetings discussions
were around children only but now there were activities and some parents were more42

satisfied with these. Most parents state that the meetings were useful and one parent said
that it helps parents to share their feeling & experiences.
AADI School organised meetings for new parents in the beginning of the year so that old
and new parents would become familiar with each other, to share the history, the present
activities of the organisation, for an introduction to philosophy of AADI inclusive
schools and its rules and regulations.
Parents were informed about meetings through their children’s diary or letters. Majorityof the parents attended the PTM regularly. Though attendance in meetings was neverhundred percent100%, but they were conscious of the importance of these meetings andthe attendance was felt to be fair. They tried to schedule meetings according to thesuitability of school and parents. In cases where the parents had difficulties in coming at
the exact time the school has accommodated parents need to come late.
Most of the parents who couldn’t attend were felt to have genuine problems in coming.
One teacher felt that mostly non - disabled children's parents came. In between, they
communicated with parents through phone and diaries. Some parents stated that the PTM
time should be shorter and there should be more time for personal interaction. Others feltthat the group meetings should be thrice or once in a month if it was for institutional
benefit, but if it is for children’s benefit, it should be more frequent. Many parents statedthe paucity of time or the unsuitability of the meeting time or an inability to get off fromtheir work as the reason for not attending PTMs regularly.
The team also conducted needs elicitation exercises and in response to stated needs, they
organised workshops. For instance, it was found that there was a feeling among parents
that children only played in the school and there was no reading or writing work
happening. The team organised the workshop and used similar activities as practiced in
the class like sand play, water play with parents. Afterwards, parents reflected on theseexperiences to see whether learning was possible in these or not. Most parents realised
how useful the activities were for various aspects of children’s development and children
could have a lot of fun also. This was followed up by workshops on familiarizing parents
with the present curriculum. Another workshop organised was for parents of children
with disabilities who had only one disabled child and had reservations about having
another child. A positive impact of the genetic counselling workshop was that one of theparents actually decided to have another child.
Parents also participated during the admission drive in 2007. They helped indisseminating information about the school and also in distributing pamphlets. Parents
have become an integral part of the individual development plans which are the goals set
for children for a specific period. A few parents volunteered to make props for theChildren’s Day Function.

43

Involvement of different stakeholders
A very interesting workshop was held in the month of September. The team reports “The
topic was communication and behaviour of children. It began with the teachers doing 2
different role- plays for the parents in which they showed how undesirable behaviour isreinforced in certain situations unknowingly. This was followed by discussion on what
the parent could have done in that situation so as to reinforce the desirable behaviour.
Some parents had a lot of good points to make while the others seemed to be quietly
gaining from the discussion. After this volunteers from the parents had to redo the role ofthe parent in the role- play this time to reinforce the desirable behaviour. It wasinteresting to see how one of the shy mothers with a little coaxing could actually performin front of such a large group including men. The importance of communicating with thechildren and giving them daily opportunity to express their experiences, choices andfeelings was stressed through the discussion that followed. The workshop ended with theparents and staff sitting in small groups and making little message cards for the children
to convey their little messages back and forth between school and home. This would not
only help the children who have speech difficulties but also make communication a lot of
fun for everyone. The parents and the staff seemed to enjoy this process thoroughly”.
Some other workshops held were on yoga and health, workshop on food and nutrition.
Workshops – are done in Hindi, the physical layout makes everyone comfortable as it has
floor as well as chair sitting. During group activities, staff sitting along with parents or
sitting at same level (like: -- dari or chairs) also enhances the bond & eases rapport
formation.

The ultimate goal of participatory process is that stakeholders should become partners
and decision makers. The headmistress stated that parents were involved inadministration and organizing transport systems in the special school but were not a partof the management. Parents accepted responsibility if helpers didn’t come and paid thehelpers in the vans. They were also involved in reviewing the transport issues. This
involvement though became much less because as parents found it difficult to carry on
and later helped in emergencies only.
At the onset of the project, parents (66%) were not clear about whether their opinions
mattered to the school. While some responded positively others felt that they had had noopportunities to assess this as they were new. Many parents said they felt comfortable orfree in stating their opinions and sharing problems. Most said that decisions were shared
and the school asked for suggestions in meetings for instance they were told that nondisabled children would be admitted in school before this process began. The
headmistress stated that parent’s suggestions are always welcomed but there is nomonitoring by them.
While almost all parents felt the school shared decisions and asked for suggestions inmeetings but none (100%) of them felt they had been involved in the decision making
process of the school. Parents said that the school generally took decisions on their own

44and informed them, though they did ask for suggestions in the meetings. There was aunanimous no to any knowledge of the presence of an SMC in the school.
In terms of making a difference in the school many parents stated they felt they could but
the school and the teachers were very nice so there was no need to change anything (3%).
Some (14%) again felt they had not been associated with the school long enough. Some(25%) felt if they wanted they could bring about a change while others (57%) felt they
couldn’t bring about any changes.
Since becoming an inclusive school, the scenario has changed considerably. AADI
School has taken initial steps to make parents part of their management. Four parents
were invited for discussion while developing AADI strategic plans and they were very
vocal in expressing their expectations from the organisation. Parents also gave feedback
on various policies drafted e.g. safety and security policy. To encourage ‘fresh andunbiased insights’ into various school processes by parents, four committees (admission,transport, safety, security and facilities) formed in which parents volunteered to become apart. Educated, uneducated parents, parents of non-disabled and with children withdisabled parents with different economic backgrounds; all were members of thecommittee and expressed their view openly. The admission committee which has twoparents’ as members began to function first. It was suggested by the parents to have age
grace for children with disabilities and children who were three plus and five plus shouldbe put on a waiting list, which was accepted by the committee. One of the parents said “itwas a very good and a new experience. This step to include the parents in the schoolfunctioning is very much appreciated. We are thankful to the school authorities because
they thought we are capable of assisting them in the functioning of school.”
A teacher shared that “Empowering them to give their views, speak out, giving theminformed choice has facilitated the process of making parent’s more participative than
before…..Over the period of time, we have been able to motivate parents to volunteer self
for different committees like – admissions, transport….. As a stakeholder, the parents arepart of the school administrative policies and as parents together they form thecommunity; thereby the community is again a stakeholder in the school. The forming ofparent committees not only allows the parent to have a say in child related and otherschool policies, it in turn builds their own probably dormant skills of being a teamworker/ leader, thereby fostering tolerance, sensitivity to disability issues, diversity andcommunality”.
The relationship with parents has changed considerably and home - school relations arevery different now. Parents have become spokespersons in meetings which addressconcerns of new parents joining into the school. Parents themselves were able to answer
queries of new parents about whether their children would adversely affected by studying
with children with disabilities.
The changes in the school - parent relationship are well summarized by a teacher “PTMs
have evolved from sessions, preaches and lectures to interactive workshops, activities andsocial meets. Today generally one sees good attendance during these interactive meets as

45

compared to the reluctant, miniscule attendance earlier when mostly it was the moreeducated disabled child’s parent who regularly attended the PTMs. Parents who earlier
appeared ill-at –ease during school interactions today are confident, comfortable, secureand interactive. School meets and PTMs have today also become an arena for social
interactions. Those shy, self – conscious smiles and whispers of young mothers have
today transformed into gossipy, wide smiles and cheeky 'gupshup'. The parents from themarginalised society today are seen airing their views openly in an interactive session
which was not the case initially. It did require a lot of informal facilitation, rapport
building between the staff and parent and the singular pivotal efforts of an absolutely
persistent, understated and easy-to-approach demeanour of the management toaccomplish this. But the efforts are paying off”.
Teachers also felt they had “better rapport, understanding, acceptance of parents, andtheir social environment”. Teachers have developed a relationship with parents where
they felt comfortable, lack of any fear and are able to share thoughts & feeling mutuallyand even personal problems. Teachers were conscious about giving parents space toexpress themselves.
With these changes, by the time the project got over ninety eight percent of the parents
said in response to a question, whether parents were given a chance to discuss theirconcerns with the school authorities, that they were given a chance. similarly 51% statedthey had got an opportunity which is a tremendous change from the 100% negative
response initially.
The headmistress felt that staff already participated in management activities unlike otherschools. Yearly operational plans were made after discussions were held amongst the
program staff. There was an Administrative Management Committee and the managers
met once a week and staff meetings were held once a week, which were attended by all
the staff and in which information regarding activities in AADI and forthcoming changes
were shared. Some teachers stated that suggestions in administrative matters were notasked for in the meetings. In terms of getting a chance to speak, teachers stated thatearlier during the meetings usually the principal used to speak. However in the new setup
due to more involvement of teachers especially about matters regarding the teachingpractices and the new curriculum was designed in consultation with teachers.
There was an effort to provide space for helpers to express their views and issues byorganising monthly meetings with domestic staff. The meetings provided a space todevelop a better understanding and Working of both becomes more mutual + automatic
rather than a need to remind. Even, domestic staff gets an opportunity to share their pointof views. It strengthens the emotional bond. Helpers are being included in storytellingand other classroom activities and are heard suggestions about games that children canplay.
To build a sense of togetherness in the entire school, the team organised manycelebrations and picnics for students, parents and staff. The school celebrated festivals
like Durga Puja, Dusshera and Diwali and also Children’s Day and Christmas. These46

were celebrations filled with games and music and the team reports that parents were alsoa part of these school functions like Independence Day and Children’s Day function,
making many parents very happy their wards perform on stage. To encourage andstrengthen bonding staff parent picnics were also organised where they all played, games,
sang, danced and ate together. The feeling of belonging to a group increased and eventhough it might not be very cohesive group it is in a better situation than before. Parent’s
Picnic – A teacher shares “it was really a good way of interacting & knowing more about
each other. Parents got the space to leave behind all household activities & devote somehealthy time for each other. Get – togethers before vacations – includes all teaching &non-teaching staff. It also lays the basis for better rapport & understanding between all.
Everyone gets a sense of acknowledgement.”
Reinforcing norms for treating individuals in an open environment
Values like treating each person with respect and dignity, recognizing each person’sachievements and contributions, treating people fairly without any discrimination, and toresolve conflicts through dialogue and discussion, were considered crucial for any
environment to be inclusive. The School already had a stated inclination towards these
beliefs and staff was conscious about practicing these beliefs. These norms werepracticed was evident by the stakeholders responses. Teachers very strongly felt thatpeople were treated with respect in the school (approx 84%). Appreciation was expressed
for the staff’s work by following a process where teams share their activities in the
program meetings. All children also with one exception (95.5%) stated that teachers
appreciated when they did something well. One of the teachers felt that because of thesenorms the atmosphere in the school is characterised by freedom for both children andteachers which was not so in other schools. Another teacher stated that children have “nofear as such because we don’t stop them.” Children’s interviews also corroborated thisfact. All children liked coming to school. The things that most of them liked were playing(70%), studying (11%), the physical environment (37.5%), the food (24.5%) and teachers(35.5%). Some children (18%) stated that though their teachers were nice to them too but
they liked children with disabilities much more.
Thus, even though people were respected inadvertently there were some issues. Someteachers felt that there was a tendency to form groups when one studied and worked in
the same organization. It was not done consciously, but it was happening and they felt an‘outsider insider’ divide. Problems and conflicts are resolved through dialogue anddiscussion: The headmistress said that they followed a participatory process and the rules
were the same for management, managers and staff. In terms of problem solving if there
were general issues they were discussed in the program meeting. If there were individual
issues then they were discussed separately with the concerned person. She felt a chancefor changing was always given to people. There is also a sense of groupism among the
educators and therapists. A certain sense of unhappiness was also expressed by staff
members about roles and responsibilities delegated.
Amongst the peers teachers observed that sometimes children teased children withdisabilities or pushed their wheel chairs around. There was a child who stammered and47

the children without disabilities would laugh at him. During such instances the teachers
would try to stop them. Nineteen out of the twenty two children (86.4%) stated thatchildren in their class were helpful to each other. Children said they helped by helping
each other in their work, in distributing things, by pushing wheelchairs and helping somechildren in eating biscuits.
While teachers stated that children are very young, they fight amongst themselves but
they don’t snatch things or push each other around. Almost 36.4% of the children statedthat children did fight amongst themselves, while 59% stated they didn’t. Some children
especially girls, complained about boys hitting them.
Parents, almost unanimously (87.5 percent), agreed that children were treated well by theschool. They described being treated well in terms of behaviour, which they judged thison the basis of children being happy in the school and expressing happiness to come toschool. Parents also stated that teachers play with children and speak very agreeably tothem. Teachers gave a personal touch to everything they did and it was felt that was theculture of the school. Nobody says anything unpleasant or complains about the children
in the school. Another stated that the school had concern and took care of each child,including their toilets needs. Parents had observed that each teacher knew each child’sname, irrespective of the fact that whether he/she was the class teacher or not. The school
encouraged children to speak respectfully to everyone; children didn’t cry in school andthe children studying or whatever the teachers taught them. Some parents observed thatteachers were not strict and children don’t fear them at all, unlike in other schools.
Teachers also encouraged parents to respect children’s wishes. For instance, they
discussed & suggested parents should ask children if they want to eat or not and givethem food only if they want to eat at that time. In all, it was felt the teachers in the school
could be trusted.
While 43.75% of the parents interviewed felt that the school did support them in speechtherapy, therapist, medical help and transport to address children’s needs. They work
hard with the children and take care of their needs including food and toilet. While somemerely said the children were given toffees and chocolates sometimes, some others said
they received many things like they received twenty five rupees for making a file, books,
colour. Others said they received free transport and books. Others said they took care ofeach individual child’s needs. For instance a child who needed to be alone was taken to
stimulation. In terms of support in material things the parents stated that the school had
provided them with mobility aids. Some parents stated that teachers are sensitive towards
not only the children’s problems but also their needs and problems. Some parents said
they were in private jobs and the school supported them when they couldn’t attend themeetings. Another parent stated that they try to understand our needs.
Parents who didn’t feel supported (46.87 %) expressed unhappiness over addressing theirchild’s needs by the school. One parent said that they trained their child for toileting at
home but this was missing in school. They said there was negligence in terms of food,water and changing diapers. Another said that at times, the child remained with wet
panties. They rationalised that this may be due to the fact that there were so many48

children. Some parents found transport to be an issue and they found it difficult to get thechild to school. Another found that though there was transport but they had to pick up thechild from a great distance. Some stated that the school was very hot for the children andthey became very red due to the heat. They stated that children should be provided with
comfort in extreme weathers and the buses should be air conditioned. One parent felt thatspecial requests regarding medicines should be looked after by the teacher. One parent
stated that no volunteers training had been organized till date. Only the class teacher had
helped her to understand the needs of the children and they had learnt some things byobserving teachers and helpers. This shows a lack of support to volunteers.
Some parents complained that they had requested the teacher to administer some
homeopathic medicine at regular intervals which had not happened and he was very
concerned about this. When the parent shared his concern with the teacher, he was told
there were many children in the class and so the teacher could remember about the
medicine sometimes and sometimes she forgot. Another parent stated that during
meetings, more emphasis was laid on the issues of children with disability. He felt that
non-disabled children were side lined. They were being taught very slowly.
Belief in Inclusion
Staff belief in inclusion: By early 2005 the entire staff had accepted the idea of an
inclusive school and even the new teachers stated that they felt positive about inclusion.
These new Nursery trained teachers had no earlier experience of teaching children withdisabilities. They shared that they were not aware at all and never paid attention toeducation of children with disabilities as it was felt to be the domain of special educators.
Within a short time though they felt that they had learnt a lot, were more aware now andknew a lot about various conditions. General educators felt they had managed to build a
relationship with children with disabilities also and they didn’t hesitate to ask their help.
Another teacher stated that that she enjoyed teaching children, both disabled and non
disabled. While another cautioned that inclusive schools would be successful if thenumber of children and teachers were in the correct ratio. Inclusion in AADI School
meant a ratio of fifty is to fifty and a teacher stated that this ratio was not possible inother schools as in regular schools there could only be a few disabled children in a class.
This belief in inclusion amongst the staff is also reflected in their commitment to do theirbest for each child. Teachers had gone that extra mile to be more effective teachers. A
teacher stated, she felt she was a part of the school but she wanted to do much more thanwhat she was doing at present. Teachers love for children is clearly reflected in theattention paid to each and every child’s learning and development.
There is also a sense amongst AADI School Staff of being part of a larger purpose andthey felt that their roles were much larger than that just that of a teacher or a therapist.
Besides working for student’s progress, they were also contributing and working towards
providing justice and services to marginalized groups. Another teacher stated that theschool was providing a better opportunity for children who otherwise would have gone toa government school. One of the teachers felt that if the school was successful, it would49

be beneficial for parents, would lead to a good social atmosphere and would change thenature of society. The school was providing opportunities for interaction between the
disabled and non-disabled, which was not always possible outside the school, in thecommunity. She felt the interaction was beneficial for both sets/categories of children as
children with disability learn from non disabled children and non disabled children werelearning to help.
After the change was initiated over the next two years the teams frequently questioned
what it meant to be inclusive. A teacher stated that there was ambiguity about what was
an inclusive school; she was concerned about the degree to which the school would be
able to practice inclusion. At another point, the team said there was a need to haveanother look at where and to which extent inclusion was possible. They questioned what
was expected of them and felt that they could not practice inclusion either because they
didn’t know what it meant or maybe they didn’t have the skills. Another member felt that
AADI School would have to decide what quality meant for them as inclusion had led todeterioration in the quality of work with children with disability. Inclusion of othermarginalized groups faced a challenge by the protective attitude of the staff to children
with disabilities. The focus had to shift to all children which took time and happened only
towards the end of the first year. Teams stated that for academics, minimum cognitive
level is must. If we are excluding severely disabled children, then that is not inclusion.
Especially during teaching time, they are separated and if they are in the class, they get
distracted. On a more positive note another member stated that children are learning fromother’s mistakes.
A teacher stated that “As I experienced inclusion does work in a healthy manner, to someextent. It works because different abilities come together, all (children & adults) try tolearn & adapt each other and learning (as a person) which has happened is learning for a
lifetime. On the other side of it at times, it is still a challenge where diversity is at one of
the extremes”. Another shared “My experience has been only in the primary level(Nursery / KG) and even there have been times when individual sessions have had to betaken, so I do think that as educational concepts become more and more abstract andcomplex, it would be very difficult to bring all the children together (especially the severe
children) all the time. But yes definitely the children who are mildly disabled andmoderately disabled can study together (until much later in some cases e.g. M.R) if
certain factors are kept in mind e.g. commitment and positive attitude of teachers, a goodtechnical base, regular planning, follow up, support (in terms of volunteers), availability
and access to materials to cater to individual differences, good team work (which is also
support.)”.
After two years of the project passed, the fear of inclusive processes lessened amongst
the team. Earlier the team would only see problems but later they were more confident
after experiencing the process of inclusion themselves for two years. This was so because
earlier they had superficial knowledge of inclusion and had not practiced it. At present,
their understanding of inclusion is based on personal experiences, which was not soearlier. In the third year the team is feeling more confident also because they feel they50

have created important and new knowledge of inclusive environments amongst and bythemselves.
The team belief in inclusion has also become stronger because they have seen the growthof each child. The children with disability felt much more confident now than earlier
because earlier they felt there were disabled so they were separated. They now feel thatthey are different rather than disabled. Children have developed because of peerinteraction, they have learned to make friends and work together. Teachers have realizedthat the children are the biggest resource in inclusive classrooms.
Disabled and non – disabled children learn from each other, and get to know about theability of each other. Over all development (Physical, social emotion & cognitive) is
better in an inclusive school. The teaching strategies and methodology which are helpful
for disabled are equally helpful for non-disabled. Many children, whom we think are nondisabled, often have lags in their learning. Thus, inclusion is good for all students.
Finally, though the team concluded that inclusion is a process, it’s more of an attitude, it
never reaches a perfect stage and in each setting, inclusion is different. It’s a notion andwhen you actually reflect on it, one realizes that inclusion and exclusion occur in every
sphere of life. It was understood that one would only have small achievements to show
and teams observed that the progress was slow. At the end of each year, there was a needto review how far one had reached and for this it would be beneficial to define someparameters, as otherwise it would be very frustrating. Parameters for inclusion would
need to be defined in terms of children’s experiences of inclusive environment.
At the end of two years of experience in an inclusive school, 58 %of the teachers had an
unqualified belief in inclusion and the rest said inclusion would work only if appropriate
supports were available. Supports were in terms of physical support, support in terms ofmaterials and also in solving problems faced by the team.
Children’s reaction to inclusion: Social inclusion through peer interaction has been one of
the most heartening results of the entire process. There is reportedly a high degree ofcomfort and ease of interaction among children with disability and without disabled.
Some children with disability who had initial problems in settling down to the routine
now seem to be settled. Some who were very shy and reserved have now opened up.
Pairing students has really helped to facilitate children vocalising their needs moredemandingly.
Initial observations by teachers suggest that children did not find it difficult to stay andstudy together, though they had to remind and tell children to be careful. Earlier, they felt
left out but now feel accepted.
A teacher felt children without disabilities were very helpful because they know thelimitation of children with disabilities. The teacher did not have to remind them toprovide assistance to children with disabilities. Non - disabled children did not push themor behave in a forcible manner. Another teacher said children with disabilities arelearning and improving from children without disabilities. In July 2005 nineteen of the51

twenty two children (86.4%) interviewed also stated that they liked the children of theirclass while twenty of them said they had friends (90.9%) they could play with. Children
gave specific names of their friends and many children mentioned children with disability
and vice versa as their friends.
Teachers continued to make positive observations about peer interactions through the twoyears, about how children seemed to helping each other, about sharing and about how
they were learning to communicate with each other. They stated that the conversations
between disabled and non-disabled children reflected empathy. They seem to recognize
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Interaction between disabled and non-disabled had
increased and they mingled with each other freely. They attempted to device explanationsof the differences among themselves for instance one child said that a child withdisability was like a baby so she did not understand many things. Children wanted toexperience and explore the aids used by disabled children for instance W/C. Teams statedthat children have made adjustment with disabled children’s behaviour. Teachers shared
now children suggest their friends’ names for participating in functions. Sometimes
though, children with disabilities in wheelchairs were observed to be left out during freeplay.
A teacher writes “Earlier, communication and interaction between the disabled and nondisabled meant the existence of speech or written words. Children earlier were wary andreluctant to interact with a disabled child more because they were unable to establish acommunication link with a child whose speech was severely limited. Now when they
have to constantly work and understand each others’ points of view when together in agroup set-up children by way of rapport building have picked up on the little quirks,
gestures, gesticulations and eye movements of their disabled peer/ friend and are the most
spontaneous one’s to express their friend’s needs and moods. Also they enthuse
themselves to share their friend’s communication board and today the communication
board is not just that but also a pictorial aid that the facilitator may sometimes use as a
TLM. Communication is the link that holds the diverse group together be it throughgestures, sound vocalizations, eye-pointing, facial connotation or the communication
board”.
The teams stated that inclusion is helping kids. By observing other children, they learnt toattend to a task to sit and to look. By participating in group activities, they picked up
social skills. After seeing non-disabled children, disabled children try to imitate them andtry to walk. They copy non-disabled children. For instance, one child started eating on his
own. Fits have been reduced and eye contact has increased and also he is initiating tocommunicate. Some specific children show improvement in behaviour and speech. The
restless anxiety had now given way to a more relaxed feeling that given time disabled andnon- disabled children will happily mingle with each other. Earlier, disabled children
were used to their demands being met immediately as the teachers were only for them butnow, their attention is diverted towards non – disabled children as well. Theseobservations were supported by the fact at the end of two years in response to thequestion should all children study together, 98% of the children interviewed said yes
while 2% said they didn’t know.

52Parent’s belief in inclusion :The majority of the parents (71.87%) interviewed in July
2005 seemed to believe in the approach of the school and stated that children should
study together and they had no issues if they belonged to any social group or were ofdifferent abilities. Others said that the upbringing of regular children was different but inthe school everybody was the same. Parents of non disabled children reasoned that evenchildren with disabilities were children first. If Children with disabilities had disabilities
then they were not responsible for their conditions. Other said any child or person could
become disabled thus they should be separated. Another said people with disabilities
couldn’t do anything about the way they were, thus they should be discriminated against.
If children go to school they will study together and this was what made parent’s happy.
Some said that children without disabilities were not really affected by children withdisabilities in any negative manner. Some said that even at home children play with theirsibling which was really good, so they could also study together. Others felt that thesekinds of changes should be encouraged in the school and it should continue to take inregular children.
Some parents (18.75%) did have issues and concerns. Parents felt including non- disabledchildren in educational settings meant that children with disability got less attention anddidn’t get daily inputs. Some parents expressed the concern that if we include nondisabled children, teachers will not be able to get individual attention and they will be
neglected. They felt children could be together for activities like story- telling only. One
parent said that in terms of exchanging food, children could do this but they should noteat each other’s “jootha” as they could get sick. During the meetings, a parent of nondisabled child raised a concern that due to the presence of disabled children, their childwill be neglected.
Parent’s belief in inclusion seems to have strengthened at the end of the project and the
support for inclusion seems to have increased with 93% parents supporting the usefulness
of inclusion and only 5% feeling it was not useful for their child while 2% were not verysure. The parents, who felt inclusion was not a good idea, were parents of children withdisabilities and they felt that because of inclusion the amount of attention given to theirchildren had reduced. Six parents of children with disabilities also pulled their children
out of the school over a period of two years while two were shifted out to alternative
services because of low attendance.

53Section 3: Alternative Education Services- INTERVENTIONS
Accessed Services
A total of five hundred and sixty three children staying in different districts of Delhi
accessed the services; out of which one hundred and sixty five were girls and threehundred and ninety eight were boys belonging to different socio economic sections of thesociety (37 schedule caste, 2 schedule tribe, 37 minority,19 other backward caste, 9others and 459 general category). Children with different disabilities 12/impairments cameto avail the services and for the first time the organisation worked with children with
HIV. Under the home based service delivery model till date eleven children are registeredin the West and East of Delhi and over twenty six sessions have been held for thesechildren. A total of thirty five children accessed cluster services.
Opportunity to achieve developmental potential
To keep work focused for children coming to alternative educational services, individualcomprehensive plans were made. Goal setting and achievement were taken as indicatorsof the quality of services being provided in alternative educational services. Goals aretargets to be achieved while working with children and families in different areas ofdevelopment, which include therapy, life skills, communication, literacy (functional orage-appropriate), social emotional development and recreation, following a holistic
approach to education. A major goal area was the placement of children in schools andother services that are able to provide children with inputs for development on a moreregular basis. The team made these goals after detailed assessments in different areas.
The goals were made in accordance to the needs and priorities of the child and the family
and after discussion amongst the team including parents and children. During thesemeetings the team, the parents, the child and the manager, co-coordinator held in-depth
discussions and teams shared the details about the child’s assessments. The areas of work
are prioritized and goals are jointly finalised in this meeting. Individual comprehensive
plans were then charted out for individual children with short term and long-term goals
that were made for a period of three and six months.
If children moved from individual comprehensive plan to the cluster services, activities
were planned towards achieving the goals stated in the child’s individual comprehensive
plan. A cumulative bi-monthly plan is made on the basis of individual comprehensive
plan, which was further divided into monthly plans and daily activities are based, on thismonthly plan. The team has developed a grid in which they write in short about eachchild’s goals and its time frame.
For three years in basic services for two hundred and nineteen children, two thousand
four hundred and ninety four goals were made and one thousand one hundred and eighty
six goals were achieved (47.55%) and in cluster services for three years nine hundred
12Children with Cerebral Palsy, Mentally challenged, Autism, Visual impairment, Duchenne’s Muscular
Dystrophy, Gaucher’s disease, Wilson’s disease54

and eight goals were made for fifty four children and four hundred and ninety four goals
were achieved (54.40%). Goal achievements have increased every year in cluster service
in comparison to AES services where the achievement level has decreased from first year
to second year, still the percentage of goals achieved in cluster service is also not very
high if one compares the time allocation between the two services. Over the three years
an average of fifty eight percent parents stated they had been involved in setting goals.
Over fifty six percent parents felt they were able to include the goals they wanted to set
for their child and almost forty seven percent felt that goals were achieved.
Some of the difficulties in goal setting that the teams faced were that they could not makegoals for all the children due to the shifting and high turnover of staff. The teams tooktime to become familiar with children and organize their work. The parents became
perturbed by the frequent changes in staff and came irregularly thus making it difficult tocomplete assessments and set goals.
Placement in more regular educational services
There was a great need for community resource mapping and networking so as to makedifferent services available in neighbourhoods. Teams visited the neighbourhood
community to map the available community resources and also to network with different
organizations, regular schools, special schools and activity centres to find appropriate
placements. In all fifty six resources were identified in the community.
Admission in AADI School or in any other equivalent special school is the main
expectation of almost all parents coming to basic services. AADI School did not have theresources to admit all children. Team explained this to the parents and gave them optionsof other special schools if there were any nearer to their residence. However many
parents were not ready accept these services either because, parents are not satisfied with
their standard of work. Sometimes they cannot avail these because of financial
constraints as the fee in these schools is usually high while some schools don’t havetransport facility. Even so in all seventy five children were placed from AES to special
schools, formal school and in cluster services, over the three years. In all eight children
were placed from cluster services, to main stream and special schools.
Stakeholder Involvement
Parent Collaboration
The team had envisaged collaboration processes to be an integral part of the service
delivery in all the models. Collaboration was understood to mean that teams relate toparents as partners to meet the objective of providing education to the child. Services
would be family centred keeping the family needs as a priority and in the context of thefamily.
The team was able to work with families as partners in the session but they couldn’t
involve parents in the decision making aspects of running the basic service program. In

55

the cluster services collaboration with parents in activities and in administration of the
program was pursued with greater focus.
Parents' Collaboration
One of the issues that came up was that in the south cluster the teams came forward andshared with parents that they were finding it difficult to run the cluster on all five days. In
turn parents suggested that if AADI supported them by giving them the space they would
run the cluster the other two days. The team was open to the idea and stated that it would
support parents including in children’s planning. A parent’s roster was made incollaboration with the parents and they became actively involved in the running of thecluster. This helped to boost up the confidence of the parents and also allowed them tointeract with and help each other more often. In January, though a few children left thecluster as parents were transferred out and one child was unwell. After this the two dayson which the parents were running the cluster, collapsed as no other parent was able tosupport the cluster. Other parents discussed and decided that they would try to come on
certain days and accordingly a new parent roster was made. The parents jointly decided
that they would try out this arrangement for the next three weeks and if it was notworking out they agreed that the parent cluster days (two days) would be temporarilysuspended. The new arrangement was not successful as parents who had agreed to comewere unable to come because of various reasons and a joint decision was taken to
temporarily suspend the parent cluster. The cluster there after had been running for threedays a week.
Staff Involvement
All the AES staff used to meet on a weekly basis in which administrative issues,
communication issues, and other issues related to program such as dress code for thestaff, working hours were discussed and resolved. Sharing of information about different
components used to be done in the project meetings. AES team use to meet with their coordinators for detailed discussions (team meetings) about the needs of children andfamilies and the challenges which they face in addressing them. In all seventy three teammeetings were held.
Initially, for reflective meetings the team used to meet on monthly basis wherein theyshared achievements, issues, challenges and attempted to find solutions for them. Lateron these meetings became very irregular. Teams were requested to write reflective diaries
on a daily basis but they were unable to do this due to time constraint. Some of the issues
shared in these meetings were a concern about the number of drop outs from the west
zone, goal making, changes in team members and transition of children within programs.
Teams also expressed a need of skill building for facilitating parents group, in handlingissues like sexual and personal hygiene and transfer of skills to parents.

56

Assessing Collaboration in Basic Services: Parent feedback
To assess the collaboration with parents in basic services a parent feedback was designed
covering four areas of organisation and administrative of service delivery, processes
followed during sessions, the purpose of the session and the impact of services. In thefirst year the total percentage of positive response from the parent’s feedback wasseventy seven, in second year it was sixty seven percent and in third year it was sixty
five.
Parents’ feedback on collaboration in basic services
The criteria for selecting the parents for feedback was that they should have attended atleast four to five sessions with their child. Feed was taken at the organisation or at theirresidence. It was envisaged that the same parents would be asked for feedback over three
years but only seven gave feedback for all three years, forty nine gave feedback for two
years and hundred and six gave feed back once a year. The same parents could not be
asked for feedback because they either stopped coming regularly to AADI or theiraddresses changed and the team could not trace them as phone numbers also changed, afew of them has shifted out of the city and some were placed in cluster, special schools orformal schools and their needs were met. This led the team to analyse the attendance andit was found that eighty percent of the parents became irregular or completely stopped
coming after four sessions.
In the domain related to processes followed during sessions, an average of seventy nine
percent parents gave positive response over the three years.
In the domain related to the aim/purpose of the session is fulfilled, an average of sixty
four percent parents gave positive responses over the three years. In this domain some ofthe questions asked were about whether parents felt if the team understood their feelingsand problems, if they were given useful information and if the team informed them aboutprovisions available to them as parents of a child with disability for example concessions,
schemes etc.
Parents shared that teams didn’t visit the schools their children were placed in on aregular basis. Some other parents shared that School visit was done by the team members
and the school had not co-operated. Parents also suggested that guidance for admission
into vocational training and clarity about whether to continue in regular streams or notshould be provided by the team.
A parent suggested that teams should help in making Disability Certificate and theyshould be informed about the facilities available under law for future of children withdisability. Another shared that goals were never shared and sometimes teams suggested
unpractical solutions. A parent commented that after putting in a lot of effort to comefrom a long distance they often felt that the session was of no use.

57

The average percentage of positive responses over the three years, in domain oforganisation and administrative of service delivery, was sixty seven percent.
Some of the suggestions shared by parents under this domain were that sessions shouldbe held in the summer break, in the evenings and on Saturdays too, especially for school
going children. Another parent wanted a greater frequency in appointments as usually
there were long gaps between appointments and children would forget what they hadlearnt.
Parents who are staying far from AADI suggested more branches should open andtransport facility should be provided to those parents who don’t have conveyance facility.
One parent requested that more detailed and longer home programme should be given sothat parents who can't come regularly can continue to work with the child at home.
Parents also suggested that vocational skills should be taught to children and vocationalcourse like computer etc should be organised. Other parent suggested that the teams
should work on building confidence of children and learning life skills. Some othersuggestions were that new techniques in therapy should be shared with parents. Others
stated that education assessments should be age appropriate and teams should pay greaterattention towards studies and education of the child. They also complained that teams
took a long time to finish assessments.
Parents also requested that the organisation should make greater attempts to retain theirstaff as it was difficult to form a rapport with teams, in case of frequent changes. A parent
stated that if you pay peanuts you will only get monkeys.
Another parent complained about the technical competence of the team in therapy.
Stating that they had come for over five sessions but the teams was still not clear about
the program which should be given to the child. They also complained that the teams did
not provide them inputs in the areas of communication. Parents also shared that if goals
were set the teams should be able to tell them the time period in which these goals shouldor would be achieved by the child. Parents also complained about the poor coordination
between the educators and the speech therapists and appointments were frequently
cancelled.
Parent also suggested that team should work with all schools in Delhi to train theirteachers so that they will address the needs of children with disabilities sensitively andalso the only thing that children may need was a little more attention. Another parent
suggested that the teams should develop facilities like hostels,
A parents suggested that the teams should organise group activities for both parents andchildren, like get together with other parents should be organized once in six months,
extra co-curricular activities which the child can come and participate in (painting,dancing, etc.) should be arranged, workshop for parents should be organized so that they
are trained in addressing the needs of their child and make children self-dependent.

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In the domain related to the impact of services, an average of sixty eight percent parents
gave positive responses over the three years. In this section the parents were asked if theyfelt that the team listened to them and gave importance to their views, if they werelearning ways of managing their child and if the team was able to address or answer theirchild’s needs and issues.
Some parents shared that they felt positive and confident that their child would improveafter their visit. Others stated that staff was helpful, their needs were fulfilled, they were
happy with the services and counselling facilities. They stated they were motivated aftercoming to AADI and AADI was like a life line for them.
While another parent felt that the teams had not given much input to their child. Anotherstated that earlier there had been improvements in their child but later on there was no
improvement thus they had stopped coming. While another stated that in spite ofspending money there was no improvement in the child. Another stated that a childshould be improving after teams programming but this had not happened. One parent wasvery upset because they even after coming for over six sessions the teams were not able
to address their child’s needs. Sometimes teams were also unable to address parent’s
needs and the remarks of a highly stressed mother reflect her lack of support shared thatsuch children (her child is severely disabled) should not be there and further asked if thegovernment allowed mercy killing of children.
Parents also wanted to see something happening towards answering their stated needs
after filling up the feedback forms and questioned that if the feedback was being reallyused to bring about improvements. They also suggested that the frequency of taking
feedback should be increased and periodic feedback from same person should be taken.
Assessing Collaboration in Cluster Services: Cluster parent participation tool
The tool that was developed focused on the management of the services and was not
focused on teaching learning processes of the services. The areas included in the tool
were parent’s participation in development of a vision, planning and reviewing of
progress. It also asked questions about support and conflict resolution among the group.
Some of the other areas were leadership and transfer of skills amongst the team. Based on
observations, minutes of the meetings held and interviews with nine parents thepercentage achieved in September 2006 was 26 per cent. In August 2007 this percent had
increased to approximately 49 percent.
The lack of access to quality services for their children makes parents think of the cluster
service as a fortunate opening for their child. During interviews with the parents all ofthem had only one suggestion that the cluster services should run for five days a week.
All of them said that the AADI team always asked parents to share any problems they
were facing in meetings issues. There was no perception of being part of a group, which
took decisions on how the cluster services should be run.

59

Parents also shared that through their involvement in cluster services they began working
with other children which had given them a different perspective of the needs of others.
During the cluster parents were able to bond within themselves and were often seensuggesting strategies for addressing each other children needs, leading to a support
system within the cluster among the parents. Parents were comfortable and became very
open with the team. The close interaction between the team and parents lead to anincrease in the transfer of skills.
The cluster services were envisioned to be developed in collaboration with parents tobreak out of the present mode of service delivery where the professionals are perceived as
the dominant bearers of knowledge. This is a fairly new concept and till date the role ofprofessionals as the providers of technical knowledge for the child’s development is still
very dominant in cluster services. Parents are rarely able to perceive themselves, as
empowered individuals capable of being equal partners in any form of service delivery
concerning their child.

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Chapter 4

CHANGES AND CHALLENGES
The three year project led to the development of various insights about the challenges
involved in implementing inclusive education. Each of the components led to different
learnings. This chapter discusses these learnings from this process.
Learnings from AADI SCHOOLOne of the hallmarks of action research is that it brings about a change in people who
undertake it. All the teachers interviewed agreed that they had observed changes inthemselves in terms of their skill levels in addressing the diverse needs of children withdisabilities, their perspectives and attitudes. Teachers felt that they become better people,
they were open to feedback much more than before, worked in a more participatory andcollaborative manner, they were able to accept differences not only in the school
environment but also in the family, they were more patient and most of this had become
possible due to an increase in self reflection. They had begun taking more risks and trying
out new ideas or become more experimental. They felt they had a more practical andpositive attitude towards inclusion, had developed a good insight into inclusive practices
and felt more confident about inclusion.
Developing inclusive teaching practice and policies has been an important aspect of thisjourney. There were no readymade examples available which could have been followed.
Thus teachers tried to think of new methods and in hindsight felt it was better to havestarted with unknown / blank slate as they have learnt a lot and developed individually.
The knowledge they have created is born from their own experiences. Everything they
have learnt they learnt through designing and implementing new strategies. Theirexperiences of this forward journey were reflected in their reactions which they shared ayear later. In contrast to the panic, excitement, and being out of control the teachers were
relaxed, knew what to expect, were predicting children’s reactions and appeared savvy
and in control. Collaborative teaching and learning, which were difficult to follow earlier,are familiar processes now. A new curriculum was drafted. Planning now meant thinking
of strategies for achievement of all children. Activities were designed so that children
worked on their own as the tasks given were engrossing. Most teachers stated that there
was still a lot to be learnt and some teachers have made further learning targets forthemselves.
The schools culture had moved a great deal towards participation of stakeholders. Teams
felt that relations were more equal. Opportunities and spaces have been created for
different voices to be heard. Freedom was given to children to express their opinions.
Teacher’s value children speaking up and they stated that children have increased
personal sharing with teachers. There had been efforts to develop more personal
knowledge about support staff to understand them and also to involve them in classactivities. Teams have started self reflection and are able to identify gaps in their work.
They are accepting changes in the working place but also keep questioning. Teams have61

learnt to explore potentials and the slower pace of an individual is accepted. They are
more critical of the schools that their children are going to because of their experience ofan inclusive school. There has been an increase in a concern about the education sector
as a whole.
There is a sense of collective leadership amongst the school members. Teachers gavechoices to children and asked them for feedback about themselves. Older students
became independent and started taking responsibility of themselves. They started
speaking up a lot more about their rights, what they like and don’t like. Children are morecritical of adults and take a lot more initiative than before. Children are setting groundrules for themselves. During assembly, children were encouraged to speak up. Many of
the teacher’s assumptions have changed especially about ‘severe’ children. Teachers try
to ensure children talk to non verbal children using alternate augmentative
communication tools and it is often used as a teaching learning material. Teams sharedthat they learnt to include children in regular activities and exploring potentials rather
than on limiting abilities. They felt that children were being provided a fearlessenvironment at school.
In a meeting held on the 30th March 2007 to learn the experiences of the journey of thepast two years towards inclusive education, the teams stated that it had been a journeyfrom something unknown to known, an adventure full of anxiety, curiosity, hope,evolution, surprises, enthusiasm and excitement. The journey required discourse about
new things; it required leaving the comfort zones and questioning assumptions about
themselves and personal growth. The journey required continuous planning, thinking,reflecting and documenting. In this journey people have become comfortable withexperimentation, continuous planning, failing and trying again. The teams have asked
numerous questions and found some answers while many remained unanswered. The
following figure represents a summary of the changes in AADI School while moving
towards inclusive education in this brief period.

Choices and Dialogues
Facilitating learning
New Curriculum
New relation with Learning to plan for diversity
the community
Joyous learning
Welcoming Diversity Participatory evaluation
Access to environment,
policies, services
Belief in inclusion
New skills
Involvement of stakeholders
New policies
Role in decision making
Nurturing leadership
Basic norms-respect..
Support for inclusion
Attempting belonging

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Even at AADI where the project team had total control of the project the sailing wasnever easy. Here the issues were about shedding a role which people have been trained
for and have practiced for years; about learning to see all children as part of a diverse
group rather than focussing only on children with disabilities. The teams initially wereextra protective towards children with disabilities. The entire focus of introduction of
normal children in to this environment was on the implication of inclusive education on
children with disabilities. Initially the sharing in all the reflection meetings was aboutpeer interaction and whether it was in favour or not for children with disabilities. Aftersome time though it seemed that there were no attitudinal problems as both teachers wereteaching children from both categories. One of the disadvantages of turning into an
inclusive school was that the concentration of disabled children was much higher than in
any other school. The teams did not want to reduce the number they were alreadycatering to so as not to feel that any children with disabilities would be at a disadvantage
because of the change. They were maintaining the same number of children withdisabilities in each class as they would be if it was a special school.
The teachers initially made ability groupings especially for what they called concept
teaching sessions and prepared checklists which would be followed by volunteers in theclass for the ‘severe’ children at the same time. For other activities they included all
children and thus restored order in their classes. A concern for teachers is that they needtime to complete the syllabus, and if they focus their attention on addressing needs of‘severe’ children an imbalance tends to occur which they have not been able to resolve.
The School still needs to learn to have high expectations for all children.
Initially collaborative teaching required clarity about roles and role re-definition as
special education teachers may feel threatened that their places were being taken over sothere was a need to address the dynamics especially as the special educators group was
the dominant group in special schools. As the two systems met there were apprehensions
on both the sides. Overtime though these boundaries dissolved as working together madethem realize each other’s strengths. For instance special educators could not teach forbigger groups of children except six or seven children with disability at a time.
Another concern that came up was about the quality of work with children withdisabilities. The earlier way of working involved rigorous goal setting, reviewing andassessments. With the inclusion of non disabled the focus was diffused to the extent one
could not make IEPs for all children. Teachers were concerned about leaving needs ofchildren with disabilities unaddressed especially the severe children. They felt mild andmoderate children could easily be accommodated in class activities as they werecognitively at par with other non disabled children. But the whole effort required toanswer the needs of non disabled children made them neglect the needs of severe children
whom they felt needed one to one ‘sessions’ and would show progress only when thishappened. The shift in thinking about the role of the therapist appeared even greater andat times insurmountable. The conceptual shift in sessions like from gross motor andindividual sessions to physical education was easy on paper but practicing it in reality is
still something the team continues to struggle with.

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The time period was not enough for the parents and students to really take on a decisiverole in the school’s governing body. Likewise it will take much longer for the community
to own the service provided by an organization and fully participate in its processes.
The organization from being a special school with total control had transformed itself
into an inclusive school. AADI managed to move further from where it started, sustainedby its belief in inclusive education. A belief has emerged that inclusion will need tohappen in every sphere of a school for it to be truly inclusive. Finally, the comments
made by a six - year - old child with disability who had experienced both the special andthe inclusive school which were shared by his mother, seem to say it all. She said earlier
her child would feel that he was different, that’s why he did not go to a school where all
the other children went and he felt upset about this. Now he feels that even though he isdifferent he studies alongside all other children. He can play with all the other children
and tells other children when they want to run and play with him, that you go and run, I
can’t run. He realizes that he is different, accepts it but now he does not feel hurt, as heknows how to interact with children without disabilities and they all study together. In an
inclusive school your disability does not make you lesser than anybody else even though
you may be different. Thus AADI School will continue on its journey and this poem by ateam member 13represents the feeling of the team on this ongoing journey

izFke o”kZ esa Fkh my>uf}rh; o”kZ esa lqy>h dqN my>ur`rh; o”kZ esa gS meaxo”kZ izfr o”kZ c<+k;saxs dne,d lekosf’kr tgkWa cuk;saxs ge A

Learnings from working with the government general education system
Mainstream government schools were one of the three important components of the“Towards Inclusive Education” Project. The goals and achievements envisaged for thiscomponent in the project can broadly be categorised in to two categories namely policies
adopted by the schools at micro level and classroom instructions and learning. Working
with the selected government schools, has proved to be a tough challenge as there weremany issues totally out of control of the project team. Yet the three years of work has
managed to influence the micro level policies adopted by the participating schools andachieve certain project objectives. In terms of polices there have been improvements ininfrastructure, more effective implementation of admission policies and polices regarding
parents involvement in the school.

13

Arpita Yadav
64

Changes and achievements in government school policies
Improvements in infrastructure: The Directorate responded by sending letters to theconcerned schools when infrastructure issues being faced by the schools were shared by
the team. Besides this in School two, a pathway was built to prevent drain water fromflooding the school grounds (It was surrounded by an uncovered drain which would flood
the school during the monsoon) and electricity facilities also improved in this school. In
school three through the Vidyalaya Kalyan Samiti (VKS) the water tanks were cleaned.
School Admission Policy: In all the team facilitated the admission of two hundred fifty
four children into schools or were linked up with resources in the community during the
project period. Of these, two hundred forty eight children were retained in theirplacements. Teams were able to provide support to parents during the admission process
in the schools.
There were only a small number of children with disabilities already enrolled in schools
and the team was unable to facilitate admission of more children with disabilities in the
two-years. This was not possible mainly due to the lack of identified children in theyounger age groups and the majority of the identified children were above fourteen.
These children needed to have been prepared for tests and the team was unable to identify
resources to do so.
Parent involvement policies: The team’s interventions in organizing parent teacher
meetings resulted in some teachers taking the initiative to call more such meetings. Afterthe initial meetings in one of the schools three teachers on their own initiative called two
more meetings. Parents started voicing their opinions to teachers and teachers also started
listening to parents’ views and opinions. For instance, many parents urged the school tostart an English medium section in the sixth class. To resolve this, the team facilitatedparents to organize themselves and write to the vice principal, which they did. Within a
few days the decision to start an English medium section in the sixth standard wasconveyed to the parents by the vice principal. The VKS was an active body in this school
and that also made a difference. The team’s strategy of encouraging parents to organize
themselves and present their issues to the school seemed to have worked in these cases.
The success of these meetings is apparent in the responses of the parents of all the fiveschools. The team reports that in one of the schools “the teachers remarked many times
that the parents had become assertive because of AADI team. Whereas, the team believedthat earlier also the parents were assertive but they would do it in a confrontationalmanner which infuriated the teachers and the issues never got addressed.” In anotherschool a parent shared that he felt that “for the first time he had become part of his
daughter’s education” while another mother said “Never before she got such a positive
response from the teachers”. The change seen in the teacher’s attitude towards parents
was that the teachers now seemed confident about addressing and working with parents
and tell the team to work on other issues. After the meeting one of the parents met the
AADI team members and offered his help wherever required and also appreciated thework done by AADI team. Thus the team succeeded in beginning a dialogue between

65parents and the school even though effective participation in decision making about theschool may still seem a long way away.
Changes and achievements in school culture and practiceChildren: Children enjoyed and had fun doing the activities such as storytelling. Someteachers continued these activities for sometime even after the project got over. The teamwrote that the teacher adopted team’s stories but did it without actions so the children
started acting it out. Then one child got his Hindi book and told the teacher to tell a poemon rail. She read it from the book. The children made engine and train and started pushingeach other, falling on each other as children had learnt to act out their poems. Children
often recited action poems that had been taught by the team. The team was able todevelop for some time a room for primary children where they can practice dance, songs,
activities etc.
As a result of the summer camp the performance of the students had increased which wasvery visible. Many children had improved their writing skills as well as comprehension.
These observations were supported by the final analysis of the diagnostic assessment.
Twenty children took the test on the final day thus only those children’s results are being
shared. In math’s there was ten percent decrease of children at level zero, there wastwenty percent drop of children at level one, there was ten percent increase of children atlevels two, three and four. In Hindi there was a similar trend. There was a twenty five
percent drop in children at level zero, there was ten percent drop in children at level one,and ten percent rise in children at level two, four and five. There was a five percent rise inchildren at level three. Some of the students were creative as well which was recognized
during the camp. This camp also gave the students an opportunity to express theiranxieties and fears related to the school.
As a result of the direct work with the children the confidence level of a child increased
as was seen in the fact that the child had begun taking interest in class activities andwould come up to the blackboard to copy his work. Students responded very well toteam’s teaching and began giving correct answers. The team observed that “Initially
students were confused but later on they have understood the concept very well”. The
team reported some progress of children with whom they have been working with. For
instance the team succeeded in teaching children to blend letters to read words. Anotherchild who was not able to blend all the words while reading felt very happy when theteacher with team’s help encouraged him to read and finish his writing work. The teamalso reported about another child that the child had learnt the number concept from one toten so there was improvement since the team began working with him. One of thechildren whom the teacher said was hyperactive also completed her work and got it
checked. Another child that the team worked in began recognizing three, four and five
and writing from one to five which made the team very happy.
The team brought a change in a child who kept hitting other children and scared themaway. The team kept encouraging her by praising her efforts. Another child who would
never participate in the class started repeating and doing whatever the team was asking66the children to do which really surprised her. The team also intervened to encouragechildren to keep the surroundings clean by putting the waste in the dustbins which they
did enthusiastically. A few ground rules in the class were made to increase theparticipation of the students, whom a majority of the students happily followed.
Children who used to be quite in the class began to recite poems in class. Children, who
would never do their work in class, began copying from the black board and began
recognizing some letters. Children began taking responsibility for the learning by telling
the team that they would do their homework. There was an increase in their confidence
levels as the child said that she would soon learn to write also.
One child who was always shabbily dressed came wearing a new uniform and beganconcentrating on his work which really surprised his teacher. The team brought this to theteacher’s notice who then praised him. The same child started taking responsibility in theclass, for instance the team reported that he began cleaning the blackboard on his own
which made the teacher very happy. Children who were always crying in class began tosit in the class. The children with whom the team worked at individual level were seemed
to have benefited from their input. Many children over the next few days began to trim
their nails.
Teachers: There appeared to be a more positive relation amongst teachers and students
in the class. This observation was substantiated by the results of the survey conducted at
the end of the project in July 2007. Fifty percent of the teachers stated that there had beena change in their relationship with the children. Teachers said they were trying to befriendly along with being strict. They were also trying to be more open, their interaction
had increased because they started discussing things with students now and they tried tounderstand their backgrounds by talking to parents. The team noticed several changes inthe behavior and attitude of teachers’, they used to restrain themselves from hitting thechildren. Teachers began using the activities introduced by the team as incentives tomake children complete their work. Initially teachers used to complain about littering in
the class later on those same teachers told the facilitator that littering has reduced in theirclasses.
Team also noticed that teachers began paying attention to weaker students. The team’s
intervention was successful i.e. they were able to influence the teacher to change theirteaching strategy. For instance a teacher named David began to go to each child to makethem understand the concept he was explaining, when he saw that the team was trying tohelp all the children who were not able to understand what was taught in the class. The
team felt that the teachers were trying to accept the techniques and strategies used by theteam for children who were falling behind as the teachers used similar strategies forhelping the weaker children.
The teachers could develop an deeper understanding about problem creating children andthey could appreciate the changes seen in those children. Once a teacher was very
surprised at children’s response to an activity suggested by the team. One of the teachers
also reported that she had seen a lot of improvement in children’s behavior. Children who

67

would never listen, had started listening and responding to teachers. Another teacher
praised one of the students with whom the team had worked with and said she had begun
doing her work well.
Teachers became aware of the diverse needs of children in the class and started
discussing the same with the team. One of the teachers ensured that children who werefalling behind were dealt with in an appropriate manner. The teacher had asked some of
the weak children to sit in the front rows, whom she felt needed more attention. She madesure to call the shy and weak students so that they could perform like other students. This
teacher by constant questioning also ensured that each child had understood the lessons
taught in the class and also made groups in her class.
Some teachers tried to make lessons contextual by giving real life situations andexamples to children to explain concepts. Teachers took on the activity based teachingthemselves. They were doing the activities as done by the team. Some teachers used peer
tutoring to help the weak students. Some were trying to explain each and every thing
related to lesson while revising.
The team reported that over time teachers paid more attention to teaching. In the projectend interviews, approximately sixty one percent of the teachers stated they had observedchanges in themselves, sixty one percent also stated their understanding of diversity hadchanged, seventy six percent stated their knowledge of teaching methods had increased,
seventy four percent stated that their practice had changed. Approximately fifty eightpercent stated that children’s learning had improved and sixty one percent felt that they
were able to address the needs of children in their classes more effectively.
The transfer of skills to teachers envisaged during the foundation course and the summer
camp was negligible as teachers present remained mere observers or didn’t turn up but ateacher who showed interest asked the facilitator if this exercise could be done in theclass. The facilitator then shared the advantages of group teaching here and handed overthe cards and chart to the teacher and asked him to give suggestions wherever needed.
The relationships between teachers and the principal also showed some positive changes.
The team was able to provide a forum where the principal and teachers could have a
discussion about teaching learning practices in the school. One of the principals observedthat the teachers who used to come late, had started coming on time. The principals had
accepted that teaching would become more effective in groups, children would
understand better and peer tutoring will also take place. In the project end interviews
approximately forty six percent of the teachers interviewed stated that their relationshipwith the principal had improved and all the rest felt there had been no need for a change.
One principal felt that because of AADI’s intervention, the Directorate had taken agreater interest in the school.
The biggest change in the schools had been the awareness about diversity and the
dialogue about diversity. Change may take a while but a dialogue and discussion overissues of inclusion in government schools has begun, and this happened more easily.

68During the project end interviews, ninety five percent of the teachers interviewed said
that they knew the team members, while forty one percent felt that they had a good
relationship with the team. Approximately forty eight percent stated they did find theirsuggestions useful and practical and thirty eight percent felt that their knowledge base as
trainers was also of a good standard. The majority (eighty six percent) stated they would
like to continue working with the team.
The work with the government schools in the areas of culture policy and practices maybe
summarized in the following diagram.

Active learning
Collaborative learning
Making learning fun
Influencing
Self discipline
government policy
and evaluation
Access to school
Access to information
on rights
Awareness about diversity
ParentSupportive Environment
Involvement
Considerate class climate

Learnings from Alternative Education Services
Basic Minimum Services: The strengths of the basic minimum services model are that it
is an easily replicable model of service delivery. It requires a team of a therapist, a special
educator and a part time social worker and an appropriate space in the community. It has
the potential to reach many children and they are provided individual attention andguidance. It is an initial information sharing and support service which provides guidance
to parents about disability issues.
The drawbacks are that starting the service in the community may be a challenge because
finding appropriate places takes time. Teams had to struggle to start their community
service in the East Delhi area. They were not able to develop services in the west zone as
no suitable infrastructure could be identified. Some other drawbacks are that it places agreat deal of expectations and demand on the parents. Parents are burdened withfollowing educational and therapeutic programs at home. They have to commute on adaily basis especially in inaccessible public transport while carrying their children whichbecomes difficult over a long period of time. The team found that the drop out of children
from far off areas was very high. Other reasons for dropping out besides difficulty intravelling were family problems or loss of interest in continuing with the services as it
failed in securing admission or placement in a regular school. At times the team is unable
to elicit the exact need of the parent and child. Another gap that was realized during the69

last three years was that there were no facilities for the children between fourteen toeighteen years in the form of pre-vocation or vocational education and the majority ofchildren needed these services.
The service does not provide an effective environment for children to achieve theirdevelopment potential and their social needs remain unmet. Thus even though it canreach many children it may not be a very appropriate service to answer children’s
educational and social needs.
Home Based Services: In home based services model instead of parents bringing theirchildren to AADI the onus of reaching the child lay with the team. To some extent themain need -the ADL management is best looked at the home background. So to someextent this model is appropriate. The drawbacks that the teams have found out are that for
any orthotic & postural aid, the parents still have to come to AADI. Also children’s social
needs are not being met through this model. It may require linking up with community
resources to fulfil these needs to make the model more appropriate.
Cluster services: The cluster services require many more resources, and reach out afewer children but it allows children a real opportunity to realise their developmental
potential. Children’s educational, therapeutic and social needs would be met in thismodel and parents also find it satisfactory. It is easily replicable if community resources
are available but it does increase the load of administrative duties on the teams in thecommunity. For these services to be really effective teams may need to simultaneously
work on developing resources in the community which allow children to access thoseservices and thus allow access to cluster services in larger number.
In the initial stages of cluster development the teams may need extensive support forplanning and structuring interventions for children as a group, due to the level ofdiversity among children. The collapse of the parent cluster points to the fact that parents
cannot be expected to volunteer on a regular basis, as it places an extra burden on them.
Not many parents in regular schools are expected to go and volunteer in their children’s
schools on a weekly basis.
All the service delivery models remained outside the ambit of the formal educational
systems. Services would attempt to increase access of children to these existingeducational systems by placing children in the system and provide support to them, tostay within the system. These models were envisaged in recognition of the fact that eventhough two other components of the project were attempting to make schools inclusive, it
was a long term process and the magnitude of the need for services would not be met byjust six schools, thus they brought a touch of reality in the face of the other two idealistic
components. Overall the team’s dominant focus remained addressing individual children
needs rather than on models of service delivery including the management.
In the planning phases of the project, discussions had been held whether the program
should concern itself with all out of school children within its geographical radius or
should it confine itself to addressing the needs of children with disabilities. Resource
constraints at the time of project implementation had dictated that the objectives be
confined only to children with disabilities. But the experiences of the other two70

components have strengthened the belief that programs need to address all out of school
children together as this is more in keeping with the principle of inclusion and will in thelong run be more effective, as it would allow the same resources to be tapped to meet theneeds of a larger number of children.

71Chapter 5
IMPLEMENTING INCLUSIVE EDUCATION

Implementing Inclusive Education is more likely to be a successful process if thefollowing steps are followed.
Step 1: Design programs at the system level
Step 2: Create support for and belief in Inclusion
Step 3: Build an understanding of diversity
Step 4: Build an understanding of universal design including in learning
Step 5: Dialogue about quality of education inclusive pedagogy
Step 6: Ensure availability of resources
Step 7: Establish Collaboration
Step 8: Facilitate participation of all stakeholders

Collaboration

Resource Support

Belief in inclusion

Inclusive
Education
Systems

Quality of
Education/Inclusive
Pedagogy
Diversity

Appropriate physicalEnvironments/
Universal design

Participation of
Stakeholders

Design programs at the system level
Design programs at the system level, which address systemic barriers to inclusion andensure availability of a spectrum of services. If at the design stage systems are thought
about with all persons in mind including persons with disabilities, inclusion becomes anin built process. This requires an awareness of the diversity of needs of people who may
access a system.
Create support for and belief in Inclusion/Belief in inclusion
The main conversion that is required in moving towards inclusive education is a change
in values and attitudes which is a difficult task for any individual and even more72

cumbersome for organizations. Very few organizations will change their values at thebehest of others and it is crucial that the leadership in an organisation becomes committed
to inclusion for it to be successfully implemented. Everybody will agree in principle withthe values that inclusive education heralds, however it proves to be difficult to bring it in
to practice especially when it requires to bring in a change in oneself. Hence there will beobstacles which need to be addressed.
Belief in inclusion may be viewed from two different perspectives. One is rights based
perspective, while the other is a pedagogical perspective which advocates that differencesin children are inherent and pedagogy needs to address these differences. Depending onthese perspectives different roads to inclusion can be adopted. According to one path
inclusion is meant to include regular children in the special school meant for children
with disability. In other path it means children with disability moving into the world of‘regular’ children. Whichever road or perspective one may adopt a belief in inclusion isimperative for successful implementation of inclusive education.
Build an understanding of diversity /Diversity
Implementing inclusion involves a dialogue about diversity rather than disability.
Diversity “encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that eachindividual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences” 14 (Sweetman 2004: 8).
These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other
ideologies. Diversity allows “the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, andnurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple
tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained withineach individual” (Sweetman 2004: 8).
The concept that disability is an aspect of human diversity is inherent in the way
inclusion has been defined in the TIE project of AADI. The initial understanding ofinclusive education as being about academic inclusion was challenged during the project
period and the belief that inclusion was not about children with disability only but all
marginalized children, has gained a stronghold. In their dialogue about the concept ofinclusive education teachers in government schools identified poverty, lack of exposureand lack of resources as barriers to inclusion. Inclusive education principally and due toits practical implications cannot be just about children with disabilities.
The present school environments are designed and cater to perceived averages and areorganized around a uniform conceptualization and understanding of the humanpopulation. This interpretation of inclusive education requires one to move two steps
ahead of today’s actuality. First is to assume that the system is completely open todisability i.e. children with disabilities have complete access to schools or educational
systems, and thereafter to assume that all people/children who are experiencing
marginalization due to socio-economic causes like poverty, caste, religion and genderagree to unite as one. They agree and express in one voice that their experiences are
14

Sweetman, Caroline. 2004. Gender Development and Diversity. Oxfam

73

similar and the onus is on the school to address their diverse needs. School systems
recognise this fact and acknowledge the rights of all children to be there and expect
pedagogy to address learning needs.
However this understanding is hardly shared in the larger context in which the work has
been done, let alone in the disability sector itself. Some may even state that the work in
the five government schools cannot be assigned under the purview of inclusive education
as it didn’t include children with disabilities in any significant numbers.
Build an understanding of universal design including in learning/Universal Design
Physical environments and materials may have to be designed in the future keeping in
mind the principles of universal design. The aim of universal design is “to design
products and environments usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without
the need for adaptation or specialized design” 15 . Efforts will have to be made andfinancial resources will be needed to make environments accessible. Accessibility will
not simply mean ramps in a school. Universal design principles are being applied fordesigning instruction also which will reduce the number of adaptations required for
addressing diverse needs.
Dialogue about Inclusive Pedagogy or Quality Education
Implementing inclusive education involves concern for the quality of education as accesswithout quality becomes meaningless and only quality of education will ensure access tolearning for all children. “Effective teaching in an inclusive classroom therefore demands
teaching strategies that can accommodate a variety of learners with different
backgrounds, needs and strengths. These strategies in my view address three crucial areas
within the classroom:-the context of learning; the content of learning; and teachinglearning processes” 16
Educational practices in inclusive settings will require some major shifts in thinking, somuch so that at times one would be tempted to call the entire process as pedagogicalreforms. The founding premise of the project in terms of practices was that special
education was built up around a medical model and teaching here was practiced based on
the behaviourist method, which needed to change. All the pedagogical practices followedin the project are well known good practices in teaching. The amalgamation of these aspracticed in the project though emerged from the unique history of the organization andits people. The project challenged the belief of parents and teachers that children’s
learning completely depend on their efforts and abilities. This belief is a major attitudinalbarrier to inclusion. The project propounded that children don’t fail to learn but teachers
fail to teach all children. The move from the concept of “teacher knows it all and is thebearer of knowledge” to a position that the teacher, is as much a learner as the child wasquestioned extensively by teachers who have settled into teacher directed practices for
decades.
15
16

Ron Mace at http://www.design.ncsu.edu/cud/about_ud/about_ud.htm
See Annexure 4 for details

74Ensure availability of resources
Inclusive education will require resources even as it leads to a better utilization ofexisting resources for all children. One of the main resource challenges faced during the
project was human resources for implementing inclusion. In AADI School this issue wasresolved by the concept of collaborative teaching, where a special educator and a general
educator were responsible for the class together. The availability of human resource withthe right knowledge base and skill level for working with the other schools was a major
problem, as there were no training courses for people working in inclusive environments
or implementing inclusive education. Initial capacity building and orientation to inclusive
education thus was crucial in all the components. The whole school development team
had to undertake facilitation of change in other schools and required a great deal of
preparation, as most of the planned activities were new. Most people were trained to be
special educators and had the task of changing practices of general educators in theregular education system. Thus there was an inherent conflict there itself.
The situation was not helped at all by the frequent resignation of the people from thisteam. A testimony to the difficulties faced in human resources may be seen in the factthat since the beginning of the project 34 people out of the total forty had left till July
31st. In the MDS component with a team of six including the manager, ten people joined
and left over the period of three years. At times there were only three persons to do thejob of six. The original team had been initially trained for the kind of work they wererequired to do but this team changed and capacity building had to be again taken on, in
the implementation phase. The project objectives were ambitious but did not match theskill level of the people who were expected to implement it. This led to a lot of confusion
amongst the team about what was expected of them. A major issue that came up was thatthe manager of the MDS component left at a crucial period and the new manager did not
get enough time to prepare for the role. The capacity building could not be repeatedluxuriously with the new team. The project introduced many new aspects, which theteams were not always able to assimilate, and had to plunge in the work with a minimal
understanding. They were learning about concepts and skills, which they themselves
were asking teachers to practice. To counter turnover and reduce regression of progress
made, effective orientation modules will need to be designed.
There has been a tremendous learning about the government school system, theirfunctioning, the issues they face, its teachers, students and to some extent their families
and communities, which was crucial. Initially the majority of the team was unfamiliar
with government schools and their functioning Thus they themselves took time to adjust
to the reality of the government schools and viewed them from their worldview, which
was very different with how the schools viewed themselves. Teams would constantly
complain about almost everything in the school and teachers, especially their attitudes.
Discovering dedicated teachers in the government schools was initially always a surprise.
The team realized their own lack of knowledge of the contexts of the children they were
working with. A team member writes, “When responses were elicited, the teacher aswell as the facilitator was surprised to realize that they knew so little about the children’scontext.”75

Inclusion also requires resources like physical help, as non-availability of physical help isan administrative barrier to inclusion. For instance in the government schools there isapparently only one helper for the entire primary staff which creates innumerable
problems for young children. AADI School teachers also insisted that physical help is an
essential requirement for practicing inclusion as well as support in problem solving issues
arising from implementing inclusive education.
Establish Collaboration
The ability and skills to establish collaborative relationships, where two or more parties
work together, for jointly achieving common goals is also crucial for successful
functioning of inclusive environments, as well for facilitating inclusive environments. In
AADI School different professionals were able to function as multidisciplinary team.
Such a relationship with the government school teachers could not be established andteams acted as consultants. Teachers had problems with the practices the team suggested,
they frequently wanted to use the team as substitute teachers and they felt they werebeing observed and monitored by the team. Teams felt that the teacher’s were doing
things because they were asked to do something and not because they wanted to do them.
A lack of understanding of steps in the change process made them adopt strategies, whichwere not effective. A built up of the frustration levels led to insistence about adopting
certain practices and this made some teachers resist the team. It seemed that there was
hardly any collaboration here and the understanding that was required for a collaborative
relationship seemed to be between the Directorate and AADI rather than AADI and thegovernment schools.
Facilitate participation of all stakeholders
To transform a school into an inclusive school, participation of all its stakeholders(Parents, teachers, students, staff and community) in school activities including indecision-making is an essential factor. Meaningful involvement of parents and local
community is imperative to enhance learning for all students. A community of learners(including teachers and students) is created, so that mentoring, connectedness, trust andatmosphere fostering creativity and risk-taking– also lays the groundwork for powerfulpersonal growth of all involved.
Participation leads to the sense of belonging, which is the hallmark of an inclusive
environment. Relationships need to be open, where people feel comfortable and are able
to share their feelings and views even if they may be not in agreements with the majority.
While working with other schools parent and community involvement are a crucial
resource, which needs to be mobilized, to ensure inclusive policies and practices are
implemented. Increasing parents’ participation in schools is also easy to accomplish as
the majority of the parents are interested in their children’s learning.
One may need to guard against becoming confined to working with a single stakeholder
as in the case of working with the government schools the teams were not able to involvethe leadership and children in any significant manner in their processes. To bring about a76change in the culture, practices and policies of the school the team became confined toattempting to influence teachers to address each child needs in the class.
Conclusion
The combination of appropriate steps along with the process will lead to bringing about
desired changes successfully.
The move towards inclusive education may be a road with major hurdles but it is a not aroad which cannot be travelled. The sustaining factor in this entire journey has been the
beliefs and values with which the journey began. Inclusive education may take on
different meanings for the different schools. Inclusion in schools will appear chaotic andonly a deeper observation and understanding of the processes in the class or school may
lead to a sense of order behind the chaos. In an inclusive school diversity and differences
become a part of everyday life of the school. It will be about each and every child andthus about children first and will require collaborative efforts between agencies that atpresent might be working separately or in isolation.
Leadership of schools becomes a much more complex undertaking than a regimented androutine role that it may play otherwise in school environments. This may be extremely
difficult for most people in authoritative positions and for many who believe thatcomplete order and obedience are the hallmarks of good leadership. Inclusion redefines
two elements in a traditional school. First the right to be included in the class and school
and the second is about defining the concept of achievement. There may not be a clear
centralized authority as decentralization of existing authority is an automatic outcome ofpracticing inclusion. There is an increased sense of togetherness and community when
one begins to practice inclusion. It is essential to nurture this sense of togetherness
because this group will sustain the practice of inclusion, create norms, which areenduring and induct new members. Each stakeholders practice and behaviour becomes
crucial element of the whole and even if one element or part is dysfunctional it will affectthe whole group’s value base. Thus leadership has to be extremely aware of resolving
conflicts in an acceptable manner for all.
To change or transform or initiate the movement of schools to become inclusive schools
one may have to engage in a dialogue about quality of education. There will be a need toraise awareness about diversity amongst children and addressing the needs rather thanjust addressing disability. As the team noted in their work with the government schools
they rarely ever used the word inclusion or inclusive education. Schools will have to
become ready for increasing involvement of all stakeholders including children in all its
spheres of functioning. Thus there may be a need to share information with all
stakeholders about their rights and responsibilities. There has to be an emphasis oncollaborative processes in the schools in different spheres. The school will need to beprovided support through this process of change for instance in terms of problem solving.
It may have to re-examine its policies of resources allocation, as resource support will be
required for inclusion. Our common agenda should be quality (including equitable)
education for all.

77

This leads us to the fact that if one decided to work with the concept of inclusive
education it requires one to broaden their spectrum of understanding not only aboutchildren and practices but also of the entire process one may have to adopt to facilitatesuch a change. Thus there is a great need to debate, critique and examine one’s own self
to determine the extent of inclusion it reflects.
The understanding of inclusion will be different amongst team members, which also
makes a great deal of difference. In the project time this understanding has notcompletely filtered through and the team still talks a language, which they may haveimbibed but it has not evolved, on their own. Thus they are reflective but have notreached a point where they can give directions to self and may need future guidance toevolve pedagogy for inclusive school. Thus even where there is a strong belief ininclusion changing values irrevocably will take time and abilities of self-reflection, which
may need to be developed for the majority of professionals.
Basic services and cluster services, the models followed in AADI School and for thealternative education are replicable at a macro level if proper infrastructure is madeavailable in the community with the requisite human resources. Transforming special
schools will require a paradigm shift in education and is a doable task. This model caneasily be replicated as it would only require hiring of additional general educators andthat would be the only added cost to the present cost of services. The availability of aknowledge base about pedagogy for inclusion and the commitment and belief in inclusion
education are crucial. The whole school development approach and action research
processes will make it possible to function at the system level rather than in a piecemeal
manner.
While working with government schools one needs to be ready to persevere andremember the fact that a great deal of effort may produce very small results. The initialprocess of meeting teachers and identifying strengths and challenges of their schools is
fundamentally very strong. This is so because when two parties meet for the first time,
there is a moment in the first meeting when there is openness and an opportunity where astrong basis for collaboration can be established. One would need facilitation skills to do
this effectively. If collaborative and participatory strategies are adopted even a small
group of facilitators can reach many schools. The concept that was supposed to be tried inthis project could never be really tried because the required understanding among staff
was never completely in place (MDS and AES). Thus one cannot say which model works
and which doesn’t. Maybe the conclusion is that one will never be able to get that
required skill thus the model is a failure. So only one person has the required skills andthese apparently cannot be transferred to anyone else then or have not been transferred toanyone in two years then it’s not practically possible to implement it. One may pump in
more resources and continue with a more highly paid staff who will be held accountablefor changes in one school each, but then it is not scalable. One needs to look at ways andmeans to enhance quality in state level programs and redesign this component. Training
is an essential aspect for transforming the schools thus capacity building skills are crucial
for changes to happen successfully.

78

In controlled environments just planned for it and it got done, but we are still learning
about how to change others which is crucial learning for the organization as it seeks towork in a broader environment than before.
May be working with, one school at a time a good idea, for people taking on this process,for the very first time. It may be fruitful to adopt the strategy of one person to one school,
to increase accountability and not to be seen as substitutes. Changes in teachers will notcome about easily in a government set up because they don’t get rewards for it. But theteacher’s motivation is and everybody else’s is very important for improvement. We haveto build our strategies around that. And the school will cooperate and the teachers willchange when they see it works as children’s performance improves and they get morecredit. This would help to mobilize children as well as parents. MDS failed completely toshow the relevance of its strategies.
Unlike a general perception about the rigidity of the bureaucratic system it would appear
that flexible policies which allow for humane interpretations at school levels will allow
inclusive education to be practiced in its true sense. So if orders are appropriate thegovernment school teachers will do what they are asked to do as it is a policy. For
instance they may crib about the books but they can’t change it easily. In government if
appropriate policies are made then teachers have to follow them. Intervention has to be
pitched accordingly based on the analysis of, whether the gap is in the policy or in theimplementation. From this perspective in the bureaucratic systems, change is easy tointroduce, as once the authorities agree and make a policy people are bound to follow
those. This is not so easy in the private sector. It is just that policies hardly ever get
implemented. The SSA in principle states there is zero rejection but in reality it is hardly
implemented and there is underlying shared belief that in the instance of children withdisabilities only mild to moderate children will be accepted into schools.
There is a need to work at changing the government understanding of pedagogicalachievement /monitoring requirements as only then will teachers change practice. The
present emphasis of measuring teaching outcomes based on results is easily circumvented
by the teachers at the primary level, which are the crucial learning years of children. Oneof the things that will need to change, are the norms by which teachers and teaching isevaluated and monitored by the government. Undue emphasis on checking copies andjudging on the basis of written work what has been done by the teacher has an
unfortunate backlash. Even though one can understand the concern that prompted thegovernment to adopt this strategy in effect what it leads to, defeats the very purpose of
the strategy. Children simply end up writing pages after pages, written by teachers on theblackboard. In each period a pattern of teaching for ten minutes and thereafter asking
children to copy from the blackboard what has been written by the teacher is prevalent.
Whether children understand or not seems to be a concern, which is not very high on theteachers list of priorities. The five government schools need to have more children withdisabilities than there are at present for us to provide suggestions and recommendations
for the kind of policies that would be required for the school to be an inclusive school.

79

Many problems are administrative in nature. A smoother functioning from the directorate
may make a huge difference to the schools life at least from a teacher’s perspective
Some of the areas, which were not covered in the project, even though they were planned
but may be useful to work with, were working more with children and principals. Thoughteams weren’t able to prevent discrimination, it was an inherent idea. Thus in none of the
programs nor AADI School or in the government school were there any significant steps
taken to directly ensure that discrimination did not occur or to take direct action against
any occurrence of discrimination.
The most important, sustainable outcome of the project is a dialogue about inclusion has
begun. AADI School has moved far along the road when compared to the government
schools but even in those schools given the contexts in which they are situated theawareness has seeped in that a school is about multi-stakeholders who may be asimportant as any teacher. One has just begun the journey towards inclusive education.
Many questions still remain unanswered and one of the major questions is the issue ofaccommodating and adapting teaching to the different paces of learning in classes. A
disturbing question is that are practices as of today in these schools being fair to children
who could learn faster. This could be applicable for children on both ends of the spectrum
including gifted children. These will be answered only after further investigation or
action research into effective pedagogy for inclusive environments, which will help in
identifying teaching strategies which can address the entire spectrum of learning needs ina class. Learning outcomes/teaching outcomes will need to be tracked also with tracking
children as only then one can be absolutely sure that children are learning to theirpotential or getting best opportunities to learn. It may require another year of work tocome to more definitive conclusions about the emergent models and their different
aspects. Teaching practices have been introduced and the teams and the teachers arefamiliar with these but to provide more conclusive evidence about their effect in creating
more inclusive classrooms one needs to now gather more evidence for each of thestrategies adopted which is not just limited to the idiosyncrasies of one teacher’sobservation and which can be generalized. Thus further rigorous action research will be
required on teaching children through inclusive pedagogy, which the team may do so forthe next few years.

80ANNEXURES

Annexure No 1: DATA COLLECTION METHODS
Review and reflection meetings
The primary objective of review and reflection was to review the progress made inachieving the goals set in the mission statement of each of the components, namely
AADI School, five MDSs and AES. These meetings acted as forums for discussing about
the emerging issues and the success and failures of the strategies used. Members would
meet once in a month and share their experiences and identify the problems or issues they
were facing. They would debate on strategies which would help them to solve theseissues and revise their plans. These revised would then be implemented over a month andagain reviewed in the next meetings along with the learning’s. The meeting would befacilitated by the manager and the researchers of the project and would involve all theteam members. The Director during the meetings provided technical inputs and solutions
to the issues which the teams raised. Various strategies like working in groups were
utilized for facilitating the identification of issues.
Initially it was not very successful but by January 2006 there was a semblance ofregularity in these meetings. In the first review meeting for AADI School the groupdecided to call, itself ‘AKS- the Reflectors’ to reflect the purpose of the forum. It alsolaid down some rules for the group. During the entire three year project period there were
forty six review meetings held with the different components (AS-21; AES-18; MDS-7).
During the beginning of the project maintaining reflection diaries was suggested forpractitioners, to record their experiences on a daily basis. This would encourage
reflection and also help the teams in collecting the data, which was not recorded in thelesson plan registers. The managers were also maintaining dairies which were later
shared with the researchers. Very soon due to increased pressure of other organisational
activities the teams were unable to maintain personal journals and after a lot of
discussions they decided to share reflections in a group towards the end of the day for
fifteen to twenty minutes as they felt this method would be better than writing individualjournals. This was done on a daily basis in AADI School and was done less frequently inother two components. Whatever the teams shared was recorded and collated on regularbasis. Later the AADI School team decided to structure their reflections under the
categories of excited moments, difficult moments, and learning’s. The meetings, whichbegan in February, have continued everyday since then 17.
17

The dominant thoughts throughout have been about children, their achievements and challenges. Other
thoughts that are filtering through are colleagues giving compliments and people feeling good about themor their own achievements, in the category of excited moments. Learning’s are also about appropriate
behaviour and personal motivations, which keeps the staff going. Difficult moments are faced whenchildren do not respond, when staff feel the children’s demands are not met, or concerns about safety issues.

They are also about physical tiredness, role clarity, stress, classroom management issues, lack of volunteers and sometimes-naughty
children.

81

Data collection through process documentation
In addition to the data collected through regular review and reflection meetings, researchteam relied heavily on process documentation by the teams, which had been emphasisedover and over again. Teams have extensively been recording their work in the entire
project, with the objective of providing empirical evidence for action research. The teambegan documentation of all meetings, events and discussions, ranging from daily
recording of teams intervention, to recording minutes of weekly project meetings andshare it with the researchers on a regular basis. AADI School maintained detailed lesson
planning registers, minutes and attendance of parent teachers meetings, and minutes of
their project meetings where decisions were taken and discussions about issues were
held. In the MDS component teams maintained daily records of their work, the meetings
they held with parents and teachers and visits they made. Approximately, the team wrote
over three hundred and forty daily, meetings and training reports of their work. In the
AES component the teams also maintained goal sheets and records of case conferences
held. They collated data about goal achievements on an annual basis, maintained recordsof students accessing services, team meetings held, and home visits made. The teams in
the cluster maintained their daily activities record along with evaluation of children’s
learning’s and records of meetings held with the parents in the both the clusters. Teams
took some time to get used to it but have consistently made audio visual recordings oftheir work.

82

Annexure No 2: SIX SCHOOL SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
School Situational Analysis
The conceptual framework of surveying all the schools was built into the projectframework. The school survey was divided into three analytical categories of school
culture, policies and practices. Culture was the sum total of stated and un-stated values
and norms that the schools organized itself and its relationships around. Policies were thestated /written rules and regulation of the school as an organisation and practices was thesum of all that actually happened/done in the school including the teaching learning
processes in the school 18. The situational analysis would give an insight into the culture,practices and policies within the school and Later on this would provide a reference toassess the changes that would occur in the school.
The design laid more emphasis on collecting more qualitative data. However to meet themonitoring and evaluation requirements, later on it was decided to collect quantitative
baseline data. Thus the baseline survey involved not only interviews, focus group
discussions of teachers, students and parents of the Schools but also filling up of thequality checklist and culture tools. Observation data was collected from all the threeclasses in AADI School. To understand the history annual reports and grant files werealso analysed. Through this triangulation the team hoped to arrive at an authentic
description of the school. To collect the baseline information the team finally conducted
907 interviews in all the six schools. Permission was sought from relevant authorities to
conduct interviews. All information was kept confidential. Even while sharing
information on issues identified, the identity of the individuals/groups who raised thoseissues was not revealed.
The research team designed the necessary tools for the survey, and the actual datacollection was done by all members of the team.
In AADI School all the parents, students and teachers concerned with the three classes
were interviewed. Children with disability were interviewed with the help of educators,
volunteers and parents of children with ‘severe’ disabilities were asked for assistance injudging the children’s responses.
In the government schools the selective sampling method was used. In all the five schools
the team went and met the class teachers of the primary and upper primary sections. From
the teacher’s register children’s name were taken along with their addresses. Every tenthchild was taken from one section. The sample had a mixed group of achievers and nonachievers from each section, though the teachers were forcing the team to take only thosestudents who were good according to them. The students were from similar socioeconomic background.
18

There was a discomfort felt with these categories but it was already too late to change them as it would have meant changing the
project objectives.

83

Initially the base line started in two schools namely school 1 and the school 2. Ten
students from each class were taken as sample size in these schools as the primaryschools have two sections of each class. Thus five students were taken from each section
and a total of 50 students were interviewed. In upper primary there are more than two
sections in each class so the sample required wads distributed based on the number ofsections. In all 30 students were from upper primary classes were interviewed. In the restof the three schools (School 3, school 4 and in school 5) the sample size was reduced as it
was found that a lot of time was spent in conducting interviews. In these schools only twochildren from each section were taken for interviews. But to maintain the same sample
size it was decided to organise FGDs in these schools which saved a lot of time.

FGDs in these schools which saved a lot of time.
Table 1 Total number of Stakeholders interviewed to collect baseline data
Schools
Teachers
Parents
Students
Principals
AADI School
6
31
25
1
School two
24
80
80
1
School one
21
80
80
1
School four
10
43
61
1
School three
19
75
94
1
School five
25
59
88
1

Stake
holders

Parents
Studentsteachers
Principals

Sample size for Base line
AADI School
SchoolSchool four
School three School five
Schoo twoonelIntervie Intervie Intervie FG Intervi FGD Inter FGD
w
w
w
D
ew
view
29
77
80
24
19
34
41
38
21
80
80
24
37
34
60
38
50
8
1

24
1

21
1

10
1

19
1

25
1

Mode of conducting the Survey
The interviews were conducted with principal’s permission. Teachers and childreninterviews were conducted in the school premises where as to interview the parents teams
went in to the community. In School 2, the entire team pitched in for conducting theparent’s interview. For conducting student’s interview in school 1 and in school 2 Sr.S
students pitched in. But in school 4, school 3 and in school 5, MDS team along with84

research team conducted the interview. In AADI School Sr.S students and MDS teampitched in for conducting parent’s interview. Most of the parents were interviewed when
they came for PTM and the teams visited the homes of only the few who were left out.
This exercise at the end of the second year involved collecting data only from theteachers using the quality and culture tools, due to lack of requisite resources to do theentire exercise. A similar exercise was held at the end of the project and a total of 956
stakeholders were interviewed in all the six schools, from March 2007 onwards, when theacademic session ended. The teams finished the project end data collection within amonth. In all the schools only interviews were conducted as it was felt that parents are
more comfortable in individual interviews rather than FGD. In school 4 in primarysection there are only three classes so in this school the sample size was 60 in comparison
to other school where the sample size was 80. The two sample sizes were different as theteams were not able to reach the identified stakeholders in the baseline survey. In thesecond round the teams were instructed to take substitutes in cases where the identified
stakeholders were not available so the envisaged samples were completed.
As at the beginning of the project in AADI School all the parents of KG, first and secondclasses were interviewed. Children with disability were interviewed with the help of
educators, volunteers and parents of children with ‘severe’ disabilities were asked to help
interviewers in judging their responses.
Total number of Stakeholders interviewed for collecting project end
evaluation data
Schools
AADI School
School two
School one
School four
School three
School five

Teachers
7
25

Parents
41
80

Students
43
80

Principals
1
1

24

80

80

1

11

60

60

1

14

80

80

1

25

80

80

1

Problems encountered during the survey
While conducting the interviews the teams had faced problems in locating the addresses
in the community. The address list had been taken from the class teachers and it was
found that many of them were wrong addresses. Many parents could not be reached asthey were working and would leave home early and come late in the evening. Thus
parents who were found in the community were interviewed randomly and only thosechildren were finally interviewed.

85

While conducting the survey at the end of the project, although the team had a list of
students who were interviewed during baseline the team faced the same problems.
Addresses had changed and neighbours were not able to tell where they have shifted to;children had stopped going to school and left the place. Class VIII students were now in
IX class so they were not interviewed and a new batch of students of class first weretaken in place of them. When the interviews were conducted some of the old students hadgone to visit their native places so substitutes were taken. In AADI School all the parentsof class KG, first and second were interviewed but those children who left the school
were not contacted as their addresses had changed. The data was analysed to seek
answers about which strategies were proving successful in bringing about changes tomake the schools more inclusive, whether there were changes occurring, what were thechanges occurring and what was the nature of changes.
Findings of the school situational analysis in government schools
To begin working with the government schools, it was felt that it would be crucial tobuild an understanding of the schools and their contexts. The school situational results led
the team to develop the following understanding of the schools.
The Directorate of Education has a vision of providing quality schooling for all children
and its mission is to provide child centred education to facilitate learning and thinking for
all round personality development of the child.
The five schools allocated by the Directorate of Education were governed by the same
bureaucracy but the dynamics, the culture and practices were unique to each school 19.
The schools belong to a category called the Sarvodaya Schools which were opened with
objective of providing quality education to children from class one to twelve under one
roof as it was being provided in the private public schools. These schools only have twoclasses each in the primary sections and the rest of the children’s population in the area iscatered to by the MCD School, as primary education is the responsibility of municipal
bodies as well. There is a sense of hierarchy amongst the two school types as the
Sarvodaya schools are considered superior to the MCD schools.
Location
The five schools allocated to AADI were operating in five different districts of Delhi
namely the South, North East district, North District, North West B district, and thecentral district. All the five schools were located in different community surroundings.
While school 1 was located in a government colony with many slums in its vicinity,
school 4 was located next to a commercial complex with jhuggis and other private
schools in its vicinity. It was surrounded by rickshaw and auto stands. School 2 was
located near the Delhi border and surrounded by rehabilitation colonies. The school wall
which was very high appeared like a fortress wall from the colony. School 5, was locatedin a private colony, with neat and clean surroundings. School 3 was located in the middle
19This was kept in mind even during the planning of the project as it was felt that unless one knew theschools one could plan for them.
86

of Chawri Bazar and would suddenly appear after entering a narrow lane with a ‘masala’factory at the right side of the entrance of the school. Lanes that connected the school tothe main road and exit doors were very narrow and would be a cause of concern during
emergencies. It was located in the palace of a former queen and children had eerie stories
to tell about ghosts in the school.
Infrastructure
All the schools have multi-storey brick buildings, are spacious, have sufficient grounds
for children to play and stages for conducting extra curricular activities. Two of theschools even have well maintained gardens. The exceptions were school five which has atin roof, school 1 which has an auditorium instead of a stage and school 3 which islocated in a prime area, and was so small that it had hardly any space for children to play.
Class rooms were sufficient in the primary sections of four schools but in school 3, twosections of each class sat together in dingy rooms that are too small to accommodate sixty
three students. The window panes were broken and the rooms became dusty during theday.
Basic facilities like electricity, water and toilets are adequate, except in two of theschools. In School 3 toilets are not well maintained. There is a problem in the watersupply as the water tanks are not cleaned thus children don’t use the toilets. In the
primary section of School 2 there are no functioning toilets and no water supply either.
Children were seen relieving themselves in the open or in an empty classroom which wasobserved, to being used as a classroom later. The staff toilets are always kept locked.
There are no fans and lights in the primary section and when the class environment
becomes unbearable due to the heat teachers take the class in the corridor.
There was sufficient furniture in the primary sections of schools except school 2 and 3. In
these schools children either sat on durries, shared tables and chairs that were chipped or
broken. Though the primary section of school 1 had adequate furniture and the younger
children had colourful plastic chairs to sit on, however teachers complained that the classbecame extremely disorderly with the plastic furniture.
In school 1 in the upper primary sections the number of desks was so inadequate thateven after a large absenteeism; at most of the desks, three students could be seen sitting
again with bags on top of the table. It was observed that “the height of the desk was toohigh for students. They had kept their bags on the tables since there was no free space on
the sides or at the back and to do copying work they would stand, as they could not sit
and write. Three to four students were sitting on the single desk.”
Administration
There are detailed policies for all aspects of work in the school and these are frequently
updated and changed through the circulars that are sent on a regular basis by the
Directorate. Security was well maintained in four of the schools in the sense that the maingates were kept closed and keys were only with the helper. In school 2 during lunch time87

students from senior classes took responsibility to monitor the main gate and students
were not allowed to buy things from out side. In school 1, no body could enter the school
during working hours as the gate keeper sat at the entrance of the school though the maingate was open and any body could walk in. The gatekeeper was there to prevent children
from running away during lunch time as students tended to go out and buy things fromhawkers and run off from there. In school 3 students are not allowed to go out but
outsiders can come in. There is only a single gate which it is very small and not safe.
School 5 has a camera to observe the student’s activities which is said to help inmaintaining discipline in the school.
Four of the schools are Hindi medium schools but the primary school has one section ofeach class in English medium. Only in school 3 the medium of study is Urdu and they
have an English medium section. Mid day meal is irregular in this school but meals wereavailable in sufficient quantities whenever given. The mid day meal is given regularly inall the other schools but in this case the quantity given to children seemed insufficient.
School Population
The mission of the Sarva Sikhsa Abhiyan aims for education for all and propagates a zero
rejection policy. The stated admission policies appeared to be welcoming and open to all,and eighty nine percent of the parent’s interviewed stated that they had not faced any
difficulty during admissions, but the team reported that implementation of the admission
policy left much to be desired. Even though there was a uniform policy it was interpreted
differently in each school and the schools did not seem to be welcoming parents. In one
school the Principal openly expressed the opinion that the school did not want children
from any of the surrounding ‘jhuggi jhopri’ clusters. There was a lack of transparency
about various rules and regulation and considerable confusion about the exact
documentation required. Each school asked for different documents for residence and age
proofs. The rigidity about the age criterion caused innumerable problems. For instance a
few parents complained that last year they were told that their child was small, and would
be admitted next year but next year they were told that the child was overage.
There is also a great deal of emphasis laid on numbers by the administrations, number ofchildren in a school, the number of drop outs etc., and this data is collated at a regularbasis at state and central levels of the government. Administrators always attempt toensure they have a full strength of children in the school.
In the year 2006-2007 in the school population of the primary and upper primary sectionof the school varied. (Table below gives the details of school population in the five
selected schools)

88SchoolsStudents

Teachers

PrincipalSchool
1

1252

32

1

Vice
Principa
l
-

Gende
r

Socialgroup

DisabilityB-1093
G-159

Gen1092
SC-147
St-12
OBC-1
Gen-641
Minority-144
SC-342OBC-2
Minorty621

3School
2

1129

39

-

1

Girls
school1129

School
3

621

21

-

1

School
4

587

19

1

1

Girls
school621
G-7
B-571

Gen-411
Sc-157
Obc-10Gen1236
Sc-67
St-1

N/A

School
5

1304

47

1

1

G-581
B-723

3

N/A

N/A

Parents expressed their apprehension in sending children of five to six years of age to
Sarvodaya School four as they would have to cross a busy main road. In another they
didn’t want to send children to the school because they were not satisfied with the qualityof education being imparted and also because of the high failure rate. There was a strong
opinion of a particular community against one school and they wanted to send children toschools, which were not Muslim dominant even if it was far away. Thus parents didn’t
access school due to many more reasons which were sometimes out the school’s control
and thus children are denied a chance to education.
School Parent RelationshipParticipation of stakeholders is a very important aspect of an inclusive environment but
participation of parents in the school was not a characteristic of these schools. This was inspite of the fact that the Directorate policies on parent’s participation in school reflects anemphasis on participation of various stakeholders, by providing formalized spaces forparents and community to express their views and concerns. There are provision in thepolicies of the government for formation of PTA and VKS in each school. These bodies
are supposed to meet regularly, have decision making powers and budgetary allocations.
These policies reflect a very different perspective than the one found in the different
schools, where the relationship between school and parents does not appear to be very
supportive. Most of the responses that parents gave in the initial baseline surveys seemed89to reflect that they didn’t feel they were a part let alone an important part of the school.
After the admission process their involvement in the school became negligible. All
parents (ninety nine percent) stated that they had never been encouraged by the school to
get involved in the school in any way. Usually a prominent parent became a member of
the PTA who was supposed to be selected but most parents had not heard of this personor this provision. Not surprisingly then all parents (hundred percent) stated they havenever been involved in any decision making process in the school and 86.4% felt that
their opinions and views about their child and the school did not matter to the school.
Even more dishearteningly almost ninety three percent stated that parents could not makea difference in the way the school functioned. The gaps in the stated policy for parent’s
teachers associations were also shared by the teachers. The teachers in the schools
informed that there was no PTA as the PTA elections had not been held. In one of theschool where the PTA existed the present PTA members were parents of those children
who have passed out a very long time ago.
Most parents (sixty three percent) visited the school on their own initiative and werecalled by the school only to collect money; collect report card once in a year or tocomplain about the children. Almost sixty one percent stated that they did not feel thatthe school provided them with adequate support, materially or otherwise. In the focus
group discussions also parents brought up the point that they would like a lot more
support from the school financially as they found it difficult to support their children’s
education.
The government policy clearly states that PTA is to ensure that children’s learning
performance is to be shared regularly but only thirty three percent of the parents statedthat they had at some points discussed the performance of their child in the school with
their teachers, clearly signifying that this was not happening regularly. Almost ninety
four percent parents stated that teachers had not given them any guidance on how to help
the children’s learning at home.
Teacher also complained about the lack of cooperation and interest of parents and only
thirty nine percent stated parents come regularly. Over seventy percent of the teachers felt
parents did not support teachers in their work. Teachers shared that in majority of thefamilies parents are daily wage earners and both of the parents are working. As a result
they are not able to give time to their children. Teachers felt that the parents don’t comefor PTMs, but if money was to be distributed they would stand in line for the whole day.
Teachers also had problems with parents coming in at different times to talk to them.
They said that parents came to discuss the child throughout the day to the class and would
disturb the whole class. A teacher shared that one of the parents came much earlier tomake her daughter sit in the front row and stay in the classroom till all the children cameand would sometimes even clean the classroom. The teacher stated that children whoseparents help in studies were much better off but the children who were first generation
learners really found difficult to cope with the studies.
Teachers would berate parents in front of children and team often narrates incidenceswhere they report that parents appeared to be afraid of teachers. The team narrates that90

the ‘teacher was paying attention to the concerned parents, and when parents asked theteacher to show them their children’s answer sheets, teacher had showed it to them. But it
was observed that parents did not ask the teacher anything and it seemed they were afraidof the teacher. And whatever had teacher said they nodded their head in yes’. But thiswas not so in all the schools as the team also reports that some teachers were very polite
and patient with parents.
Even the principal did not seem to have a very high opinion about parents. Once when
the team suggested to the principal to form a parent group one principal said that it would
not be effective as most parents were illiterate. Another principal also complained about
the lack of cooperation from parents and shared with the team that the parents wereinterested in written work and would complain if no work was done in the copies. She
said children did not want to study and parents did not help the children. They were
illiterate, had a careless attitude towards their children’s studies and did not bother. Thus
there did not seem to be an acknowledgment of the fact that parents were also
stakeholders in the school.
Relationship between administration and teachers
While relationships between stakeholders of the same hierarchy were found to begenerally supportive relationships amongst stakeholders across a hierarchy were notalways felt to be very supportive, as has already been seen in the case of relations
between parents and teachers. The sense of being governed and monitored by higher
authorities is very strong amongst the school administrative staff and teaching staff.
Everything is controlled by the Directorate’s circulars and orders, which are now sent
online. Thus, there is a very strong sense of being monitored and to do as the Directorate
orders. This is reinforced by the inspection visits by the Directorate which are held
frequently and are usually unannounced. The inspectors take action against individual
teachers by issuing memos and writing remarks in the teacher’s diary.
Thus not surprisingly relationships between teachers and the Directorate did not seemvery supportive. Teachers complained that the directorate needed to address the issue ofover crowded class rooms, distribution of books in time (girls getting books and boys
don’t) and start vocational training courses. The teachers complained that they hardly getholidays for two months as they are asked to attend seminars/trainings in May/June.
Teachers also shared an instance where the higher authorities exhibited a double policy
with double meaning i.e. while checking the copies or papers they were instructed not tobe lenient. But when the students failed they were asked to make another easier test paper
which affected the good students. Due to this re-examination they would have to makethe result all over again and after all this the higher authorities think that the teachers only
come to school to have fun.
Teachers constantly complained about the extra administrative work assigned to them.
Teachers would complain that the principal had given them a lot of responsibilities andwould really get angry about the official work assigned to them. At times the team also
sympathized with the teachers about their load of administrative work. Team stated “one91

teacher teaches well (good ideas) she had so much of extra work to do because of which
she was unable to spend enough time with the children.
Another issue that came to light was that most of the administrative work with the
Directorate was done online like attendance, admissions and answers to circulars. But theperson in charge complained that the server was usually down during the day and startworking only after seven in the evening. Thus he had to come on Sundays to work. There
was also inadequate administrative staff to keep the school clean. There was one sweeper
assigned to a school. They were usually rude and would walk into the class and ask thechildren to vacate it. It was observed that when an accident occurred, there was no water
to clean the child and instead of being helpful the helpers were rude to the child.
Still the majority of the teachers (seventy five percent) had stated in the baseline
interviews that relationships with the principals or vice principals were very supportive.
In one school they didn’t have a principal or vice principal and in the other two theteachers felt principal/vice principals were not supportive. In School 2 there was ageneral lack of communication between the teachers and the principal and this caused a
lot of confusion in scheduling meetings with teachers as the principal would fail to
inform the teachers about the meetings. In this school itself, some teachers stated thatthey lost interest in their work because of the principal’s interference in changing theclasses. They shared that the principal changed the teachers in the classes every year and
it took up two to three months to get to know the new class. However the principal said
that, all the teachers knew this and did not put any hard work with the children. A
teacher, who earlier used to be in her class throughout, stayed out of it now and statedthat she didn’t felt like teaching any more. The teacher shared that she was here only tocomplete the course and the higher authority wanted the teachers to do only the required
and nothing beyond it. Teachers also complained that the principal did not give any
importance to the teachers of the primary section and was not at all considerate about
them even if they worked sincerely. In school 5 a similar situation existed and thePrincipal criticized the teachers openly and in front of the outsiders.
Relationship amongst teachers
Sixty six percent teachers felt that relations among teachers within the same section were
supportive. Teachers would help each other in both professional and personal matters.
For instance a teacher who had prepared the mental math’s questions in the previous year
helped the teacher who was finding it difficult to prepare a similar test for the current
year. In another instance one of the teachers appreciated the drawings of another teacher.
Except in one school, the primary and upper primary sections were not very close. Fifty
four percent of teachers stated that they were helpful towards each other. Attempts weremade through scheduling monthly meetings to build a sense of community of learners,
however these meetings could not be organized regularly. Thus the strong personal
relationships between teachers continued and remained dominant.

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Relationship amongst students
Students appeared to be very supportive towards each other and ninety one percent of thechildren interviewed stated they helped each other. Children generally showed caring
feelings towards other children and were observed helping each other. They would try
and prevent each other from getting slapped, they would share food and those children
who had finished their work would help the students who needed help in completing theirwork. The support was extended mainly to friends who ninety five percent of them statedto have.
Children also made it clear that not every thing was fine. Fifty eight percent stated they
liked most of the children, almost forty percent stated that they liked only a few childrenof their classes. There seemed to be clearly some children who were feeling left out inclasses and schools. This was supported by observations especially regarding children
who were labeled as being ‘weaker’. Usually children would laugh at other children who
did not know how to do their work. Almost forty seven percent stated there was a lot offighting among children and seventeen percent stated that only a few children fought.
This was supported by frequent observations of children fighting amongst themselves.
Boys in the break would fight among themselves and some children stayed in the classand would talk among themselves only. Children of different sections also did notinteract with each other.
Teacher student interaction
Interviews with children generally elicited very positive responses from amongst thechildren. Teacher student relations appeared to be very supportive with over eighty one
percent children stating teachers were concerned about their learning, seventy nine
percent stating they listened to children, seventy nine percent stating teachers helped
them and sixty seven percent feeling that teachers respected them 20.
On the other hand approximately sixty six percent children also stated that they wereafraid of someone in the school which was generally the teacher or older children. An
element of fear in teacher student interaction was easily observed in the schools. The
dominant expectation in the teacher student relationship was that children should obey
their teachers and keep quiet all the time in the class unless when spoken to by theteachers. The children would automatically sit in their places when the teacher entered aclass out of fear of being scolded or getting slapped.
Many teachers frequently hit children (thirty percent of the primary section teachers had
been observed hitting and two principals had also been observed hitting children). Almost
all teachers at sometime used abusive, sarcastic and derogatory language even with very
young children. Punishment was a frequent form of disciplining children. Children get hit
20

One would have to keep in mind the fact that children were interviewed within the school premises andteachers were aware of which students were being interviewed and sometimes insisted that certain children
should be interviewed.

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or scolded for various reasons like not listening to teachers, for not doing what theteacher said, for not getting pencils, or copies, having incorrect answers, doing dirty
work, not paying attention, or if their copies were torn, if they didn’t do well in theirtests, or hadn’t covered their copies, on not getting their copies and a teacher threatened
that she would tear up those copies of the children which were not covered. It wasobserved that when one student did better than teacher’s expectations, instead ofencouraging the student, she angrily accused him of cheating in the test. The teachers
showed little respect for children’s individuality.
The teachers who generally hit children held an attitude towards children that seemed toreflect an understanding that some children could not be changed or taught and they
didn’t want to study. A teacher shared with the team on how important and useful it wasfor teachers to hit children. Another stated that it is said teachers should not hit children,
but they couldn’t do so, because hitting children was their only resort as some children
could only be controlled if they were hit. Teachers complained that they did not knowwhat to do with the disturbing elements of the class so they screamed and hit them.
Teachers have clear favorites and generally they are the children who do very wellacademically and were generally not strict with these children. Teachers seemed to beaware of the discrimination they may face at home like gender discrimination.
Teachers’ behavior reinforced the belief that the teacher is always right and has complete
authority over a child including the ability to harm them unless they obey. A teacher
would threaten children that even their parents would not be able to protect them fromteachers. Sometimes the harassment of children seems to be with parents consent asparents would ask the teachers to hit children if they did not listen. Though in one school
the teacher didn’t slap the children because of the fear of parents as the children would
complain to their parents who would in turn come and fight.
An outsider’s presence sometimes was not a deterrent at all but sometimes teachers
stopped as seen in this instance “There was a lot of noise, children were busy playing
games in groups, and some were fighting. She called the child who was fighting, raised
her hand to slap but looked at me and stopped. She asked him to raise hands and stand.
Then she went and slapped two children who were fighting.” Usually the teacher’s
behaviour was upsetting but at one time a team member writes that “she could understandat times teachers became frustrated as children were undisciplined”.
There were many sensitive teachers also in these very schools. Some teachers were very
polite with the children and were fair to all children. A teacher reported that somechildren were so close to her that they came and met her even they have moved to seniorsections. In one class a bond was observed between the teacher and the children. A
teacher would encourage students by saying that “you should try at least, unless you try
how you will learn”. Another shared that children always want to do better if they wereencouraged. Sharing the example of Navodaya entrance exam which the children had
filled, the teacher said that the students were all very excited and had started preparation.
One teacher shared with the team that she allowed her class to go earlier for lunch as they94

were young; another teacher always addressed children by their names. The team notedthat a teacher was attentive to the needs of each and every child in her class
Observed exclusion from learning process
Teaching
All teachers and children interviewed mentioned teacher directed instructional strategies
being followed in the school or what is generally termed as ‘chalk and talk’ method. The
facilitators also observed that only teacher directed instructions were taking place. A
typical class, of these five government schools followed a teaching pattern in which, theteacher would come into the class, would tell the children to open their books, write
something on the blackboard, ask children to copy whatever was written on the blackboard, while the children were busy copying the contents from the blackboard, theteacher sat and checked the copies. Traditional teaching excluded children from learning
because teachers “teach” in a certain manner which is contradictory to good pedagogicalpractices. There appeared to be more stress/focus on completing the syllabus rather thanensuring children’s learning. The curriculum seems to be mainly focused on academics.
When children were asked whether they participate in extra curricular activities, only
thirty eight percent gave a positive response. This may also be interpreted to mean that
only a few students are included in extracurricular activities. Around fifty five percent of
the teachers faced different kinds of problems in teaching and these problems were all
related to children like children not paying attention.
Teachers used oral and written tests, for evaluation of learning and almost forty nine
percent of them were not happy with the achievement levels among children. They felt
there was a lot of pressure on teachers to make children pass but children were at times
not interested, children learning level during their primary years was not well establishedand only children who could grasp what was happening in class managed to pass. One
teacher even remarked that there should be an ‘IQ assessment’ before admitting children
as some students simply didn’t understand what was taught. One teacher shared that in
twelfth Grade only a few children were left (promoted children from eighth Grade) andeven tenth (not very clear) Grade student didn’t know how to write an application.
Teachers spent the maximum amount of time checking copies in class. Copying was
rampant during examinations. Teachers felt that in comparison to children in government
schools children going to private school were from good families so they were morecompetitive. Teachers expected children to learn themselves and if they didn’t then they
only had themselves to blame.
Teachers would often blame parents for poor learning. They said that the children “wereweak in study and their parents also did not pay attention towards their study” or theirparents were careless. Parents also knew their children were not learning and blamed iton their children inabilities or on the teacher’s inabilities but said they could hardly doanything about it. When students were asked to remark on the performance of students intheir exams, thirteen percent felt that some didn’t do well while forty percent felt most of
the children didn’t do well so either failed or got very less marks.

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Level of Commitment
Generally the teacher’s level of commitment is low and the team felt that “the casual
attitude of the teachers towards their work is a major contributor in wasting precious timeof the students.” The team observed that teachers were often found absent from theirclassrooms. According to the research team “The class teacher stayed in the class only tilllunch and after lunch other teacher took their class. The teacher who takes the second half
was on leave most of the time hence the class is free for half of the day”. The teamobserved that the teacher’s mobile was on the ringing mode and was attending
continuously to the calls and messages. The teacher seems to put in a minimal effort. The
teacher hardly moved around to see what the children are doing. She then called children
one by one to come and recite any poem and the rest were to repeat. Then she told themthat she was doing some important work and every one would keep the head down andsleep for sometime. Teams observed that the teacher had explained the sums to thechildren but in a hurry. Being a teacher of grade one the teacher should be active andenthusiastic but in this class, activities were done by rote and on board. Teachers were
never observed using teaching / learning materials but sometimes they didn’t have pensto write on whiteboards provided by the school administration and this lack of materials
led to a lot of frustrations amongst them. Some classes were well decorated in School 1,
School 5 and School 3.
Teaching for Test and examinations
Teachers were observed teaching to the test and were clearly heard telling the childrenthat this would be coming in the exams. In between they would remind students “sun lo
yeh paper mein aayega” and the team reports seeing similar questions being given in thepapers which had been done in the class. They did not put any efforts to improve thestudent’s performance. A teacher shared that in the beginning she had put in a lot ofefforts to improve the performance of her class and she had seen results also but she wasshifted out of the class. She had complained to the principal but nothing had happened tilldate.
Emphasis on Copying from the Black Board
Teachers are very diligent about writing things on the blackboard for children to do or tocopy. Children even in the first standard were reported to be copying from the blackboard
all day or would keep writing something or the other given by the teacher. There was anemphasis on written work because of fear of parents’ complaints and demand forevidence of teachers work by the Directorate. The teacher did not pay much attention to
the students who did not write in the class. Some teachers did not even try to find out
whether the students understood what they were writing. At times when there was noelectricity and total class was in total darkness, even though children complained thatthey could not see the black board, still the teacher continued to use the blackboard. Thus
writing keeps children busy. Either children keep writing or they just keep reciting
something. Children are expected to perform and are tested constantly.

96

Hurrying over lessons
The team reported that, sometimes teachers were found teaching concepts wrongly. The
team observed that the teacher was telling a story in Hindi in English class. The team wasalso disturbed about the fact that the teacher himself stated that it would take ten days forchildren to understand the matras but then he went on to introduce two matras within aweek and he had full knowledge that many children would not understand. The teamreflected that sometimes, the teacher had introduced a lesson, whose level was muchhigher than what most children would understand. The team felt that they didn’t know
how to react to the situation when the teacher was unable to answer any questions. In
another instance a teacher himself did not know the answers to the questions and asked
the children to read it from the guide.
Ambiguity in giving instructions
Teachers didn’t provide clear instructions and when children didn’t do the task
appropriately, teachers were heard yelling at the children. The teacher did not explain thechildren what she had written on the blackboard. Children were unable to get teacher’s
attention as the teachers were outside the class most of the time. Generally children’s
engagement was not of the very high standards as half the class would not pay attention
to what the teacher was doing and was busy in fighting, playing or talking. The teacher
could not involve the whole class in the discussions. The teacher pointed at the children,which they (the children) didn’t felt good about.
Lack of discipline in the classroom
Classes were observed to be unruly and children were very restless. The younger children
would hit each other a lot in class. Children who were quicker at learning usually ended
up making a lot of noise because they did not pay attention to the things which werebeing taught. Another issue was that in order to escape from the class, children would
keep asking repeatedly to either go to the toilet or to drink water every five-ten minutes.
In another class the writing on the blackboard was not visible to the children sitting on
the periphery so they would generally come in front of the blackboard and copy the work
which added to the chaos in the class. To manage the class the teachers would frequently
shout at the children throughout the day and then later complained that “gala dukh jataa
hai cheekh cheekh kar”(Their throats become soar by screaming all the time).
Learning
Almost thirty nine percent of the student said they liked the teaching of the school but
parents did not seem to have a very high opinion about the quality of the teaching in theschool and only twelve percent of them stated that it was of the good quality but most
could not afford the fees of private schools thus didn’t have an option but to send theirchildren to government schools. While eighty eight percent stated that they enjoyed97

learning in the school there was no response form eight percent of the children andseventeen percent stated that they did not enjoy learning from their teachers.
Even though eighty eight percent children stated they enjoyed learning, the teamobservations led them to conclude that the majority of the children were excluded fromthe learning process in the class. Learning seemed to be mechanical and rote and the
majority did not understand what was being taught. Most of the children were not able todo the task which the teacher assigned and didn’t understand what was happening in theclass. Only a few children would answer questions. Children would simply repeat what
the teacher would say what a teacher was reading in a chapter; they didn’t even know
where she was reading as they were unable to read.
Students did not understand what they were writing but they kept on copying without
understanding the meaning of the words. The team states, “For them the letters written on
the board were a part of the picture itself. When facilitator asked meaning of moon, sunand earth, some children told meaning of sun, but could not tell meaning of moon andearth”. The team had observed that many children were unable to write sentences andmade grammatical errors. They also observed that only a few students could solve
problems, whereas in spite of knowing the answer, most of the students could not write
due to inadequate knowledge of English language. The team observed that all children
had a language problem in Hindi and English.
The team reported that students were not clear about their basic concepts. They felt that
there was huge discrepancy amongst the level of the children of the same class as not all
the children were learning at the same pace. The team states they felt that some children
were at such a lower level in the class that even team’s inputs would not help them toreach the academic level of the class. Team identifies possible visual problems in a child,
one slow learner and felt a few children in the class needed to be assessed (hard ofhearing, hyperactive).
Teachers were well aware of the problems faced by the children and frequently
complained about them. They automatically excluded children who may /were notachieving academically and these children faced a lot of verbal harassment. Teachers
kept listing out the children’s flaws in front of the class. Teachers would get angry ifchildren admitted they had not understood something. The team observed that children
would say that they had understood something when the teacher asked them but
thereafter they would start calling the team members to explain what the teacher had
taught. The team narrated that “In this class the students were posing questions repeatedly
to the teacher who got irritated and scolded the students. The teacher asked the children
in the class to stand up those who didn’t understand. Slowly one child stood up that too
when the teacher had asked for the fourth time. On seeing him, half of the class stood up.
The teacher got angry and said “tum sab bhi us ke deemag se kam karte ho, vo uthega touthegen, meri bhasha samash nahin aa rahi thi kya”. Then the teacher asked about thechildren about the simple place value. Only two children knew and the teacher got very
angry on the children she said “jab puchti hun to yes mam, yes mam karte ho tabhi nahinbola jata kee samash nahin aaya mam ek bar aur bata do, ab jab sab khatm karva deeya to98khadhe ho rahe hai kee kuch nahin samash aaya, sara dubara pathana shuru keeya to veer
aage ka course keise khatm hoga”. The children who were not able to answer wereslapped by the teacher.
According to teachers there were some children for whom nothing could be done. They
felt that children who were weaker should be stopped only in first standard and not bepromoted. The teacher said “ab batao pachvi me aa gaye hai phir bhi ek- ek chij batani
padegi inhe”. Many teachers felt that the children who are “kamzor” / “weak” should be
put in a separate section but as there were no extra teachers this was not possible.
Another teacher complained that her class was the ‘dull class.’ There were few children
who she said don’t know anything. They just come here to abuse me and eat food. One ofthem was even repeating class first. She pointed to few children and said “inhein kuchhbhi nahin aata. Bas uth kar aa jaate hain. Copy nikalne ko bolo to gali daite hain.” Fourboys were sitting in front and doing their work (near the blackboard). They didn’t evenhave their lunch because their could not complete their work. The teacher said “sara dinbhi baithe rahenge tab bhi kaam khatam nahin hoga.” The teachers knew children’s gaps
in learning. The team narrated that after checking children’s work a teacher commented
that, “kuchh bhi kar lo yeh to aise hi rahenge”.
In another instance the teacher had divided children in to rows. She paid more attention to
three rows on her right than to the students sitting in two rows on her left. The children
sitting in the two rows on teacher’s left side seemed to be unable to answer her questions.
The team stated that there was clear discrimination in the sitting arrangements. She hadorganized a class into four categories of good, average, below average and poor students.
She openly pointed out to the children in the class whom she was finding it difficult tocope with. She shared with the team that some children were at class one level and evenbelow. Another teacher had grouped students according to their previous experience ofschooling. Children who were never been to school were put in one group and another setof children who were coming to the school for the first time were in another group andthe teacher was given them the work according to their levels. The children had low
levels of confidence and the team narrated that once when the team asked one of the‘weaker students’ to read in front of the class and teacher, the child was very scared, hestood up and though moving his lips there was no voice coming out.
An exception was a teacher in school four who was reported to be very different and theteam narrated the way she addressed a child who didn’t understand something she hadtaught. She said “Pehle doosre school mein tha, abhi isse theek se nahin aata, ise timelagega. She asked him to sit down and told him” tun thodi dair baad mera paas aana,mein tumhe samjhaungi”. Some teachers seemed to be motivated mainly due to their own
personal attitudes. A teacher had been observed to tell children that they should keep
their classes clean, as keeping them dirty is bad thing. She also told children not to eat
from outside. But once in a while the team stated “Children seemed to be engaged in theirtask as they were attentive and were taking part in the classroom activity”. Anotherteacher was reported to be doing light physical activities to quieten the children, which
the children enjoyed. The teacher was very patient while explaining the sums. The
teacher involved the whole class in the discussions. The teacher individually went to all99

the students to check their note books; as a result the class remained by and large
attentive and undisturbed. She went around and gave homework to those who had done
their work and got it checked. A few teachers took pains to explain new words. The teamwrote “the teacher then asked the students to open the Hindi books and take out thechapter “kisaan ki hoshiyari.” She gave a lot of stress on the word hoshiyari and asked
children its meaning. Many answered from their context. Some said padayi meinhoshiyaar. Some said khel mein and so on. The she read the chapter and told themeanings of all the difficult words in the lesson. Some teachers did explain meanings of
new words to children and discuss question answers before asking children to write. One
teacher in school 1 did ask a lot of questions from children about whether they haveunderstood what was being taught or not
There was some kind of monitoring of teaching by the principals as they were responsible
for checking notebooks of two classes i.e. work of two teachers every week and would
stamp on the notebooks after checking it. They also reviewed teacher’s diaries on aregular basis but the team’s reports seemed to be clearly stating that teacher’s were notdoing their job well.
Results of school situational analysis: AADI School
The situational analysis of AADI School led to the following picture of the school.
In 1978, a special school for children with cerebral palsy, called the Center for Special
Education (CSE), was started by a group of dedicated women, in a three- bedroom flat in
New Delhi. Its objective was to ensure access to quality educational services for children
with Cerebral Palsy, as there were no schools available in Delhi that would address theireducational needs. It was established at a time when awareness of disability and special
education in India were at its embryonic stage. At that time the philosophy, design andapproach of the school were based on the prevailing medical model of rehabilitation ofpeople with disabilities. This model, also called the deficit model, is based on the belief
that people with disabilities require assistance to overcome or minimize the effects offunctioning limitations.
The school provided services for children with multiple disabilities in the field of
education, therapy, speech therapy, and counseling. The school was organized so as tohave academic, sensory stimulation and therapy sections. Children were grouped intoclasses according to their ages, the ability to follow an academic curriculum (formal or
sensory) based on the success level of the therapy and educational levels of achievement.
CSE provided not only classroom-based educational services but also individualized
remedial work. There was a focus on individual sessions and spending quality time onareas that required special attention in teaching children to their full potential, including
use of AAC devises and teaching aids. In the school, education was never only about
academics. It included personal, social and spiritual value development. Students were
taught to know their rights and to take responsibilities for themselves and others. Muchneeded support was also provided to families of the children with disabilities.

100Since its inception, the school has continually adapted itself and taken steps to address
the needs of children and families. New ways of structuring programmes, different
methods of recording, review and redefining of admission policies, organisation ofdifferent groups, developing new curricula, designing appropriate technologies, including
assistive aids and appliances, trying new ideas and new methods of assessing
achievements to address the gaps have been attempted. Structural changes were also
made in the school when needed for instance when some children found it difficult tocope with the curriculum; the school opted for NIOS thus starting a new stream. The
concern for what would happen after school to children led to a formation of a prevocation centre for vocational training.
Mainstreaming of children began when they had to appear for the class tenth board
examination. As the school was not recognised, the school tied up with regular schools to
fulfil this purpose. Some of the first batch students to pass out, who were sent to regularschools, later on, secured admission in prestigious Delhi University colleges. Thereafter,
mainstreaming was attempted in the primary sections of various schools as well.
According to the children’s feed back, the special school had indeed given themeducation but had not prepared them to cope with the challengers of the outside world,which became an impetus for the organisation to take another look at its approach toeducation. By the late 1990s the approach, focus and efforts of the school shifted towards
inclusive education. The school debated about the concept of inclusion and inclusive
schooling for over six years and finally took the decision in 2004 to turn itself into an
inclusive school and CSE was renamed AADI School.
In AADI School the entire process began much earlier with extensive discussions about
inclusion itself not only amongst the staff but all stakeholders, because the support forand belief in inclusion in the school was considered crucial for the success of an inclusive
school. This support was build up over time amongst the staff, students and parents. In
preparation, before changing the set up from a special school to an inclusive school there
were meetings held with all the staff, students and parents of the school. Even the schoolstaff took time to be convinced and oriented to the idea of an inclusive school. The
concerns of student with disabilities were also addressed. The process of sensitization
started in their personal development, hobby classes and the morning assemblies throughrole plays, games and activities followed by discussions, wherein they tried to show thedifferent dimensions and tried to make them understand how the group would have avariety of needs and differences or difficulties. Meetings were also held with parents ofchildren of the existing students with disabilities over a period of three to four months to
obtain their views on inclusion. The reaction ranged from people being very happy topeople expressing concerns and fears. Some felt that the time to their children would be
reduced and it would influence their children’s education in a negative manner. Though
after sharing the long-term impact of the concept and making them realize that if theywanted equal rights with children with disabilities in mainstream schools then there wasneed to do the same in special schools also and most parents (the team felt) were able tounderstand. It took a long time for parents to be convinced about the idea of inclusion but
gradually they accepted it. Similarly sharing with the domestic staff was also considerednecessary. There was a need to address their difficulties separately as teachers had been101

involved in earlier discussions and so were more aware about the changes than thedomestic staff. The new concept was shared with volunteers who also had a lot ofconcerns. In August 2004 the decision about the movement, the concept of the school andthe plans were shared with all of AADI staff, children and parents. At this point in time
the concept of inclusive education was understood to mean all children learning together
irrespective of differences and participation of all.

102

Annexure No. 3: DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENTS IN GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS
Confirming exclusion from learning
The diagnostic assessments conducted clearly substantiated the degree of exclusion fromthe teaching process that children were facing. The results for the five schools simply
confirmed the numerous observations made by the team regarding the problems children
were facing in learning in classrooms. A total of 1094 children from the sixth standard
took the test and the result of the diagnostic test in the five schools was dismal. Only
0.2% (two children) was found to be at class five levels in maths, while 1.8% (twenty
children) was at the class five levels in Hindi. There was a difference between the levels
attained by children from MCD schools and Sarvodaya schools but it was not of such agreat significant difference as imagined by the teachers. In the case of Hindi MCD
children scored at par even with class five level children.
This assessment had been conducted in response to the issue raised in all the meetings
with the upper primary sections teachers about the low standards of children from MCD
schools. The teachers stated that children were unable to cope with the sixth classsyllabus and concepts, as they were unclear about the basic concepts and many didn’tknow how to read or write. These children were most likely to drop out later on. Some
felt the results of their schools would be much better if only the MCD students were notcoming to them in the sixth class. According to them, their teaching practices were quite
good; there was no discrepancy in the levels of the Sarvodaya students. Their results
would be hundred percent if only the MCD students were not coming to them in classsixth. To further investigate this issue and in an attempt to reduce the stigmatization of
students from the MCD schools, the team suggested the possibility of a diagnostic
assessment to substantiate the teacher’s observations. The teachers of all five schools
agreed for such an assessment and the team designed a tool based on the SCERT
curriculum being followed in schools. It chose to examine students in two subjects,
Maths and Hindi.
LevelsFinal levels achieved
Math’sPre School
Class 1 level
Class 2 level
Class 3 level
Class 4 level
Class 5 level
Totals

Hindi

Number of
students from
MCD Schools

Number of
students fromsame Sarvodaya
SchoolNumber of
students from
MCD Schools

Number of
students fromsame Sarvodaya
School

145
390
135
25
24
0
719

35
101
30
22
19
1
208

307
191
101
83
25
12
719

63
57
39
25
20
4
208

103

Annexure No. 4: NOTE ON INCLUSIVE PRACTICES, Renu Singh, 2006
The aim of inclusive education is autonomy, independent learners with dispositions forlife-long learning and good citizenry. In a community of learners, the model is learnercentered; knowledge is co-constructed with teachers weaving the connections between
themselves, the subject, and their students. The community, then, is a place built on
fairness, freedom of expression, and responsibility where learning is meaningful andrelevant to the children's lives and experiences. All voices are heard, respected, and as
integral part of the fabric of learning. Community is about connectedness andrelationships; it is where one learns to value and sincerely appreciate diversity in a
multitude of forms. Inclusive teaching practices are the embodiment of democratic
practice. In his book, Experience and Education, Dewey describes democracy as a social
construct establishing shared social control, by the membership, to the benefit of the
majority. He added "that in order for education to benefit both the learner and society, it
must be based on actual life experience of the learner" (1997, p. 89).
Education should exemplify the framework of society; or rather model a healthy version
of a democratic society. One learns to appreciate democracy in an environment
established to introduce and give opportunity to interact with diverse others; anenvironment that provides a safe setting in which to exchange ideas, share talents, andcollaborate with diverse ability of others who are able to contribute through a variety ofexperiences. A democratic environment functions as one that values equally thecontributions of all its members. Democratic education takes place in an environment
established with regard for the individual student’s abilities and conducive to student
choice. Student choice refers to collaborative negotiating of teachers and students, notabout the concept to be learnt, but the manner by which the student may learn theconcept. When individuals with diverse learning needs and talents are appreciated andeach is given the opportunity to contribute in a group setting, a pattern of social
interaction develops that sets a precedent for future adult behaviors.
Effective teaching requires awareness of the individual needs of each student in theclassroom. The ways in which, learning can be made relevant to each student in classentails, ways to meet the unique needs of each member of a dynamic group of learners.
As educators recognize human development as unique to each individual and the missionof education as one of facilitating student growth – cognitive, social, emotional, andphysical – so that each student is prepared to reach her or his potential in a democraticsociety.
The teacher establishes the actual classroom environment. Once the bell rings to begin
the school day and the classroom door closes, regardless of the school’s written policy or
the program description, the curriculum and its delivery are determined and influenced by
the classroom teacher’s core values and belief based on his/her educational philosophy.
An inclusive classroom, in Alfie Kohn's (1999)phraseology a 'working with' classroom,
provides a climate that fosters students' deep understanding, promotes students'
excitement about learning, and presents opportunity for social, as well as, intellectual,104

growth. Learners’ interests drive much of the curriculum in an environment that supports
their desire to learn through the process of discovery. Noise, the din generated by student
movement and dialogue in concert with the sounds of students involved in their own
learning, is characteristic of inclusion. Inquiry, with emphasis on thorough, thoughtful
student discussion of complicated issues, is generated by the interests of the students andthe questions that they ask. Assessment is on-going and creative, both of student learningand of the teacher's own professional practice, for the specific purpose of meeting thelearning needs of each student. Inclusive classrooms resemble each other only by merit ofstudent investment in inquiry and discovery learning
A traditional classroom, again in Kohn's (1999) words, a 'doing to' classroom is one inwhich the adults make all decisions concerning lessons, the teaching activities by which
the students are expected to learn, the assessments which tend to focus on paper andpencil tasks that are quick and easy to evaluate, and most importantly emphasize
compliance. Often the format is teacher lecture or student worksheets. The common
metaphor for this type of classroom is that of the students as vessels that the teacher is to'fill' with necessary knowledge. The voice most often heard in a traditional teachingenvironment is that of the teacher; lecturing, explaining, persuading. Students competewith each other to have the correct answer for the teacher sooner than classmates.
Teachers believe their teaching actualizes their philosophy. A traditionalist has strong
feelings about the benefits of a specific curriculum targeting the capabilities of a group ofsimilar ability students who, they believe, learn approximately the same breadth anddepth of a concept and at the same pace. A proponent of inclusion supports tailoring thecurriculum to the ability of individual students, who within a classroom composed ofdiverse students, will then engage in a healthy exchange sharing different perspectives ofthe same concept.
Classroom practice matters for authentic, successful inclusion. The ideal classroom
climate is one that promotes deep understanding, excitement about learning, and social aswell as intellectual growth. Some of the characteristic Inclusive Practices can be summed
up as:o Diversity is expected, valued and addressed through accommodations andadaptations in teaching and learning. Individual and group diversity contributes
positively to classroom climate, learning outcomes, and community quality.
o Education should encourage the formation and expression of informed views,
lifelong learning, an active search for solutions to serious societal problems,
caring for others,
and constructive community participation. Knowledge andcompetence are purposely constructed in a variety of ways in enriched andstimulating contexts. Classrooms are places where challenging, practical, andrelevant experiences take place and where authentic important questions are
asked.
o Teachers who are inclusive are consistently moving away from rigid, textbook –and basal-driven frontal teaching toward cooperative learning, whole language,
thematic and creative instruction, critical thinking, problem solving, and authentic
assessment”

105

Action for Ability Development and Inclusion
Formerly The Spastics Society of Northern India
2, Balbir Saxena Marg, Hauz Khas, New Delhi – 110016
Tel.: 26569107, 26966331, 26864717
Fax: 26853002; E-mail: aadi@aadi-india.org
Website: www.aadi-india.org