In-service Primary School Teachers' Attitude and Inclusion

The study is an attempt to study the opinions of teachers of special schools, integrated schools and regular schools respectively towards inclusive education. The field of special education has grown tremendously in the past few years, demanding frequent updates for the professionals. Periodic in-service training programmes for teaching professionals to keep them abreast of the developments worldwide and to equip them to face the challenges of changing trends is of paramount importance. Such programmes are needed for all levels of staff from classroom teachers to master trainers. Periodic short-term programmes varying from 2 weeks to 3 months, based on the need, should be made mandatory for all trained professionals. Awareness programmes on each disability be initiated at school level. Mass media can be used for enhancing awareness and influencing attitude of masses towards inclusive education. Though factors behind positive and negative attitudes were not able to be determined, the results indicate that the majority of participants agree that special education and general education teachers need to collaborate in order for inclusive education to be successful.