Inclusion of Sen into mainstream schools Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Inclusion of Sen into mainstream schools - Essay Example Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit (n.d.)" Though there are tribes that are unaware of any formal educational system, still knowing and learning the culture that they have and the important skills to subsist and to live harmoniously with his country can be considered education. Included in the kinds of persons that have the right to be educated are those who have learning and other kinds of physical and psychological impairments. These are students with learning disabilities that require special educational needs for them to be educated. They are students with special education needs or simply SEN students. The Education Act of 1996 considers a child has "special education needs" if he has a learning difficulty. In this case, a child has learning difficulty if "he has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of his age," and "he has a disability which either prevents or hinders him from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of his age in schools within the area of the local education authority" (Education Act of 1996). Students with Special Education Needs (SEN) have difficulties in l... Examples of students that needs special attention are those having known disabilities like: Attention Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder (ADD/ADHD), Aspergers, Autistic Spectrum Disorders, Cerebral Palsy, Down's Syndrome, Emotional Behavioural Difficulties, etc. (Types of Special Needs 2003). Evidences have backed up the necessity of SEN inclusion. Foremost of these are the reports submitted by the Alliance for Inclusive Education and Disability Equality Into Education that shows the feasibility and effectiveness of inclusive education for disabled children with different impairments (British Council of Disabled People 2005, p.2). The paper submitted by 2020 campaign laid down the advantages supporting the claim of SEN advocates that inclusion is beneficial for disabled students. Through this system, they have been given the opportunities to make friends, to improve their social and academic skills and to initiate a change in this world (Inclusion is Working, 2005, p.1). Also statistics reveal that children from special schools "do less well in exams, have higher rates of unemployment and are often more socially isolated as they grow older than their peers in the mainstream (Inclusion is Working 2005, p.2)." With these papers backing up the inclusion of SEN into mainstream education, the Special Education Needs and Disability Act 2001 has been legislated to provide a revised statutory framework for inclusion. It empowers SEN students to attend a mainstream school, unless their parents choose otherwise. Audit Scotland and HMIE released a report of the findings made by the commission. These organisations found out that to make mainstreaming pupils with SEN work, schools should have time to join their headteachers and