From Policy to Practice: A Critical Review of Inclusive Education for Children with Special Needs in Assam

Abstract

Inclusive education has become a central focus of global and national educational reforms to ensure equitable access to quality education for all children, including Children with Special Needs (CWSN). India has a number of legislative and policy documents with detailed provisions for inclusive education such as the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, National Education Policy, 2020 and Samagra Shiksha. However, the ways in which these policy commitments have been realized in effective classroom practice and how they have been realized in the context of a geographically diverse state like Assam, is not sufficiently explored. In view of this, the present study critically explores the policy framework for inclusive education of CWSN in Assam and examines the implementation of inclusive education in Assam under the Samagra Shiksha, challenges involved in strengthening inclusive education and possible ways to overcome them. The study is a descriptive type of research in which only secondary data from government policy documents, programme guidelines, UDISE+ reports, UNESCO publications and peer-reviewed literature were analyzed. The findings show that interventions like early identification, using resource teachers, providing assistive devices, home-based education, and teacher capacity building have had a positive impact on inclusive education, but there are still considerable challenges. They include the lack of trained special educators, lack of barrier-free infrastructure, geographical limitations, lack of access to assistive technologies, and lack of institutional coordination. The study concludes that context responsive planning, building institutional capacity, ongoing professional learning, evidence-based monitoring, and inter-sectoral collaboration are required to close the policy–practice gap. The findings add to the policy discourse and provide some practical suggestions in the context of promoting equitable and sustainable inclusive education in Assam and other socio-geographically diverse states of India.