Knowledge and attitude regarding inclusive education among school teachers

Inclusive education means the process of placing students with disabilities or special needs in classrooms with children who do not have such disabilities or needs. The present study aimed to assess the school teacher's knowledge and attitude regarding inclusive education. The main objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding inclusive education among school teachers. The research approach was quantitative and descriptive design was used for the study. The setting of the study was selected schools in Venganoor Panchayath Trivandrum. Sample consisted of 50 teachers selected by multistage sampling technique. In the first stage, 2 schools (1 from Government and 1 from private) in Venganoorpanchayath were selected. In the second stage, 25 teachers working in each school were selected randomly by lottery method. Structured self-administered questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge and rating scale was used to assess the attitude regarding inclusive education among school teachers. data were collected by self-report method after getting informed consent from the study participants. Results revealed that majority of the teachers 66% were having average knowledge regarding inclusive education, 10% were having low knowledge and 24% were having high knowledge. The mean score for overall knowledge was 6.4 and standard deviation was 1.54. Out of the 50 subjects, 80%had positive attitude towards inclusive education and 18% had a neutral attitude. The mean score for overall attitude was 58.4 and standard deviation was 6.53. There was significant association between knowledge of teachers and educational status. Selected socio-demographic variable such as gender and educational qualification was found to have significant association with attitude. It can be concluded that school teachers lack appropriate knowledge even though they had positive attitude regarding inclusive education. There is a need for schools to provide more special educational needs training, for implementing the special educational needs (SEN) strategies in the classrooms as well as offering teachers new strategies onimproving their knowledge and attitude towards inclusive education.