Elementary School Teachers’ Attitude Towards Inclusive Education in Kerala

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE TOWARDS INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN KERALA
Dr. Santhosh Kumar Vallikkat

Principal

Farook B.Ed College ,Kottakkal

Malappuram, Kerala

Abstract

Attitudes about inclusion are extremely complex and vary from teacher to teacher and school to school. This article explores the attitudes of elementary teachers about inclusion of special needs children in general education. This study adopted a descriptive survey research design, with 600 teachers as participants from selected elementary schools in Kerala. Four hypotheses were postulated at the significant level of .05. The instrument, a questionnaire with question items on demographic information like gender, marital status, professionalism and teaching experience has a general reliability coefficient alpha of .83. A t-test method of analysis was the main statistical method used to test the 4 generated hypotheses. The findings revealed that the attitude of male teachers is 39.4, while that of female teacher is 43.3, thus, the t-test analysis shows that the calculated t-test is 2.107, which is greater than the critical t (t=1.960). This implies that female teachers have more positive attitude towards the inclusion of special needs students than their male counterparts. Furthermore, the results reveal that significant difference exists between married and single teachers in their attitude towards special need students. And that professionally qualified teacher tends to have a more favourable attitude towards the inclusion of special need students than their untrained qualified teachers. It was recommended that teachers should attend seminars and conferences to improve their knowledge about ways of practicing and accepting inclusion for a better tomorrow for our special needs children in Kerala.

INTRODUCTION

A successful system of inclusion requires that the community believe in the competence of the education system to meet the needs of all students. Parents especially

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