Professional Development for Inclusion

Abstract

Every birth of a baby is always welcome and greeted with great jubilation by the family. On the other hand, a child with any disability may be greeted with or without knowing the difficulty. When it becomes evident he/she is secluded or given over-protection which impairs his growth and sometime affects psychological and emotional problems. The innocent individual are deprived of the minimal facilities and referred as disadvantaged children. There are disadvantaged children in every nation, every location, and every culture. In the long run, human resources are wasted since a child’s disadvantage or impairment causes him or her to be less creative, grow slower, develop less fully, and have impaired potential. Prof. Jangira (1993) has traced the milestones on path of Special Education not only in India but also in the world. Thus categorising in distinct terms as “Disabled” gave way to normalisation and mainstreaming. During eighties the scheme ‘Integrated Education’ was transferred to Education Department. The state of early intervention or early childhood special education IE/ECSE has gone from providing isolated pockets of services offered to families and mandated services for pre-schoolers with disabilities. Past 30 years the profession of ECSE has emerged as one of the strongest areas within special education. Accommodating student heterogeneity has consistently been a major instructional problem in schools. One possible alternative is cooperative learning. When this learning is well-structured and includes individual accountability it tends to create consistently positive effect on students’ achievement.