I. Context and Rationale
Safe Education system has been one of the objectives Department of Education to implement. The great mantra “Education for All” is empowered by different projects, program, and activities to achieve the goal of belongingness and high value for diversity. However, the world keeps on changing and improving as the years passed by along with students’ view in the changes in schooling. Along this, changes in the system are clearly visible as people aimed for innovation for people believed that this factor would contribute to the success of one’s nation. People views, actions, and judgments, are both influenced by their experiences and what they can witness around.
Back then, diversity is not as vibrant as how it is being valued today. For instance, Muslim community enjoined in a dominant Catholic school experience discrimination and aloof sense of belongingness. In addition to, people with disabilities were discriminated believing that they should stay at home and rest. They were being judged as someone who cannot do what normal people can do. They are incapable of everything, as many people say. As much as they want to attend school, they cannot because of the fear that they might be bullied or feel unwanted because of their poor conditions. The urge to finish school is there, but the fear and hesitations inside them were also building up stopping them to achieve their dreams as they are afraid of not getting along of what the class is into. The worst case expected is that these students face the unreasonable forms of bullying.
There are schools offering special courses for indigenous people and special education programs. In these schools, they were given full attention for their needs; they were being taught of the basic knowledge that they must learn; they were given a chance to meet other people like them helping them to learn what socialization is and that life is not only about themselves and their families but also the people out of their comfort zone. And here comes the system of what we called, “inclusive education”.
Inclusive education is when all students, regardless of any challenges they may have, are placed in age-appropriate general education classes that are in their own neighborhood schools to receive high-quality instruction, interventions, and supports that enable them to meet success in the core curriculum (Bui, Quirk, Almazan, & Valenti, 2010; Alquraini & Gut, 2012). To define it, Inclusive education is when both the schools and classrooms operate and work on the idea that students with disabilities are as competent as those who do not have disabilities and that they are both excellent in various ways. The idea of this system is to educate and make the students, teachers, the parents realize that the said condition are not hindrance to achieve one’s dreams in life and that all people regardless of what their situation is, they are part of the society.
One of the goals of the inclusive education is to provide a positive environment and to ensure the access of quality education by meeting, accepting, understanding, and attending the differences and diverse needs of the students for them to feel comfortable and welcome to the environment they moved in to. From here, students with disabilities may have the chance to finally reach their dreams without the fear of being judge. In fact, this could also be a way for them to socialize with the other people and realize that they are not different from each other after all. Inclusive education is to engage both the students with disabilities and those who do not have in a common learning experience or environment where they can fully participate in the learning progress while providing the positive environment and the sense of belongingness within the group.
According to the researchers, implementing inclusive education and offering inclusive classrooms at a school is not a barrier to achieving the highest possible educational quality, but rather a key to more progressive learning. Simply put, both disabled and non-disabled pupils learn more. Many studies over the last three decades have revealed that inclusive education improves achievement and capabilities for students with disabilities, as well as their peers without impairments (Bui, et al., 2010; Dupuis, Barclay, Holms, Platt, Shaha, & Lewis, 2006; Newman, 2006; Alquraini & Gut, 2012). For students with disabilities, improvements were saw in their academics such as literacy, mathematics, communication skills, and improved their social skills as they gained a lot of friends. Meanwhile, for the non-students with disabilities, they improved in their terms of their academics, and they also gained positive effects of being part of an inclusive classroom for it provides new learning opportunities for them like being a peer-coaches or someone who tutors those students in the class with disabilities in some lesson that is not clear for them. In that way, they are in into win-win situation.
In inclusive education, it is necessary to consider also the situations of the teachers. Some of the teachers specifically the regular teachers. Does not feel that they are knowledgeable enough and they may lack of experience in teaching students with disabilities. Hence, for them to be ready and be effective teacher inside the inclusive classroom, teachers need a better understanding of the best practices and strategies and instruction in teaching students with disabilities. Perhaps, providing seminars and formal trainings could help them adapt the environment within the inclusive education program and encourage them to practice the goals of inclusive education.
Challenges and problems for both instructors and students may develop during the inclusive education process. Teachers may feel under a lot of pressure to do their jobs, especially if they don't have adequate knowledge with how to teach kids with disabilities. Furthermore, they must present a variety of solutions so that students with impairments and those who do not may both deal with the teachings. They must consider the situations of his/ her students. Students on the other side specifically the students with disabilities may not feel comfortable to be with the others because of his/her fear being judge and this cannot be easily erased from them. the anxious feeling is always there within them and so those students who do not have disabilities together with them should make an adjustment for them to fit in.
As the needs arises to address these experiences of bullying and unbelongingess, Balayan National High School has launched Project Angat Kalinga. This is a trinity of other projects such as Project MIA (Moslem in Action), GROW (Gender Responsive and Oriented Workplace), and REACH (Recalibrating Efforts in Achieving Competence and Humanity Acts). These serve as the program intended to mainstream safe and engaging inclusive education especially on the School Improvement Plan of Balayan NHS 2019-2022. This will also adhere to the objective of Child Protection Policy which ensures that all is safe and belong in the implementation of K-12 Curriculum.
Nowadays, inclusive education is being practice in different schools as we also practice the right to fair education. Therefore, the researchers feel inspired and decided to conduct research which may help Balayan National High School to find the problems being encountered by both Muslim and Learners with Special Educational Needs (LSENs) and how could Project Angat Kalinga address the problems of inclusive students. Moreover, the research aims to answer how this project could strengthen and mainstream inclusive education in the School Improvement Plan of Balayan National High School.
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