A Report on workshop among school representatives from Budhanilkantha Municipality
Introduction: CDCA and the workshop:
CDCA is a nonprofit making organization rehabilitating children having various forms of disability. Besides taking care of such children, it has also been conducting various social programs. Recently, it has accomplished a workshop event on inclusive education. The program was mainly a discussion and idea sharing event about inclusive education focusing on the ways to mainstream disabled children in regular education system.
Objectives of the workshop
The event was conducted to attain following objectives:
Date, duration and venue
The two days’ workshop dated on 3rd and 4th may,2018 was accomplished in two different locations. The first day of the event was conducted in the hall of CDCA . The next day program continued in a meeting hall of a restaurant located in Akasedara Aaji Thakali, Kapan.
Participants details
The participants comprised of principals and teachers from both public and private schools of Budhanilkantha municipality. Although 25 schools were targeted to participate in the workshop, representatives from only 16 schools were present to conduct the workshop. Besides schools, all the staffs of CDCA were also engaged as participants in the event. A brief details of the school representatives are listed in the table below:
S.N. |
Name of participants
|
Name of school
|
Type of school |
Position
|
1) |
Ramesh Khadka
|
Nepal charter school |
Public |
Teacher |
2) | Bishnu Kaji Shrestha
|
Naulin secondary school | Public | Principal |
3) | Hari Shrestha
|
Prashanti academy | Private | Teacher |
4) | Pravesh Basnet
|
Nava manjushree school | Private | Principal |
5) | Dinesh kaji Thapa
|
Sharada academy | Private | Teacher |
6) | Tara Parajuli
|
Janajagriti secondary school | Public | Vice-principal |
7) | Bama Deva Bhatta
|
Bal uddhar secondary school | Public | Teacher |
8) | Laxmi Timalsina
|
Bal kumari boarding school | Public | Principal |
9) | Mukunda Budhathoki
|
Shree yagyamati school | Public | Teacher |
10) | J.B. Adhikari
|
Joseph high school | Private | Principal |
11) | Ganesh K. Mishra
|
Tri jyoti school | Public | Teacher |
12) | Dr. Jayanti Rupakheti
|
Shree gramshikshya M.H.S. school | Public
|
Teacher |
13) | Nimto Sherpa
|
Samten memorial E.A | Private | Teacher |
14) | Krishna Prasad Baral
|
Trinetra vidhya niketan | Private | Teacher |
15) | Susmita Mainali
|
Pioneer public school | Private | Teacher |
16) | Hare Ram Khatri
|
Jana uddhar secondary school
|
Private | Teacher |
The table above shows the description about the participants. There were 7 public schools and 9 private schools. Five of the participants of those schools hold the position of “principal” and the remaining were teaching staffs.
Program organizer
The program was organized by Mr. Dendi Sherpa, Chairman of CDCA. He has envisioned the concept of implementing inclusive education in all the schools of Nepal starting from his own municipality. He dreams of a school that can adjust children with various kinds of disability and that they need not be admitted in special schools. He believes segregating children in special schools from the common one will inhibit their all-round social development. He thus, purports to advocate for making every schools disabled friendly in Nepal organizing this workshop about inclusive education.
Assistants and supporters
The local government’s support in making the program a successful event is appreciable. The program was assisted by all the staff members of CDCA by efficiently managing the event both in CDCA hall and in the restaurant’s meeting room. The presentation content was prepared by Megan Goodwin from California, U.S. which was very relevant to the context of Nepal. She gave her presentation in her own mother tongue i.e. in English. For the convenience of participants, Saru Ghimire, a staff of CDCA helped in translating the presentation into Nepali. CDCA is indebted and much grateful towards Megan, as she gave her valuable time to conduct the workshop.
About disability and inclusive education
The constitution of Nepal defines disabled person as one who is mentally or physically unable to lead a normal life. The global disabled population is estimated to be 10%. In Nepal according to the official census data(2011), the prevalence of disability is 1.94%. Various kinds of disability in Nepal have been classified as follows:-
The rights of disabled are ensured by the constitution as well as by various acts and regulations. The regulation number 5 of “1982-disabled and welfare act of Nepal” has advocated the right to equality stating “There should not be any discrimination against the disabled with respect to their physical status.” The tenth second year plan (2002-2017) aimed to provide equal rights and a barrier free environment for the development of disabled.
One of the significant ways that can be done to promote equality among disabled or differently abled people is by endorsing the concept of Social Inclusion. One of the aspect of implementation is provision of inclusive education for disabled children. The first international understanding and commitment towards inclusive education was the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the child. 2006 UN Convention for the Rights of persons with disabilities endorsed that disabled persons are not to be excluded from the general education system on the basis of their disability.
In South-Asian countries, there is limited understanding and perspectives of Inclusive education. In Nepal, though the constitution(2015) has envisioned the concept, still it has not come into practice. Even, the NGOs in Nepal do not work directly towards inclusive teaching and learning activities. The reasons behind the lack of implementation of inclusivity in Nepal could be:
Universalization of primary education can’t be achieved unless children with disability are provided with appropriate schooling opportunities. And inclusive education is the best way to enhance equality and overall development among the differently abled children. Hence, the prevalent challenges must be overcome in order to bring about inclusivity in education.
Simply placing children with and without disabilities together does not produce positive outcomes. Inclusivity is achieved when there is:-
To sum up, the workshop conducted so far is a small attempt of advocacy to trigger the concept of inclusivity. The representatives from schools were particularly chosen as they are the ones at ground level responsible for the effective implementation of inclusivity in education system. Discussing the knowledge, experiences and problems from their perspectives is a suitable way to analyses the root causes of the hindrances towards achieving inclusivity.
The participants need to study more articles and research papers to have a comprehensive knowledge on inclusive education because two days discussion and ideas sharing would not be sufficient to provide full details and understanding. The workshop is just an approach to sensitize and advocate on internationally concerned issues i.e. Inclusive education to mainstream the disabled or more preferably the differently abled children in general education system.
Participants commitment in upcoming days
The discussion aimed to dig out the problems perceived by school teachers to translate the ideals and values of inclusive education in classroom. Despite of the various external problems that could create hurdles in achieving the inclusivity, what they personally committed for making the concept attainable was laudable. Hence, after clearly understanding the concept, the commitment they made to promote inclusivity were:-
Recommendation to concerned authority
The school representatives were positive towards bringing inclusive education for disabled into practice. However, they have also provided few suggestions to the local agency so as to facilitate them in implementing the concept. Their recommendation to the local authority government:-
Conclusion
The event accomplished with a high level of energy and positive feedbacks from the participants and ended with certificate distribution among the participants. The duration of workshop was only two days which might not be enough to discuss and share ideas among the school representatives about inclusive education and disability. However, the policy makers as well as the implementing bodies should understand the essence of inclusivity in education in order to ensure the equality in education system of Nepal. If we are able to mainstream the socially excluded group of children like disabled, then only we can ensure the child rights of all differently abled children. Also, the concerned local body should sincerely consider the above mentioned recommendations and address them as far as possible.