As Inclusive Education Canada launches a new website, “SOURCE for Inclusive Education,” it is time to reflect on how well we have met earlier targets and to consider future goals.
Inclusion Canada made its first commitment to inclusive education in 1987 when it adopted Community Living 2000, a vision for the year 2000. It contained several goals.
One was that “all children will go to school together with other children in the neighbourhood and have an age-appropriate program to match their needs in regular school classes.”
This was an ambitious goal! We did not reach it in 2000 and are still working toward it in 2024.
It’s easy to get discouraged, particularly when we consider the number of Canadian children with disabilities who are still excluded from regular classes and their neighbourhood schools. Many of the individual families facing this reality find it difficult not to despair. But victory has never been achieved by those who give up. If one obstacle is impenetrable, another, more vulnerable one must be found. If there are too few people engaged in the fight, new allies must be found to join in the effort.
Looking carefully at the current struggle for inclusion, some hope exists. When Inclusion Canada began its crusade, we were a lone voice in the wilderness. Few teachers, government departments, school boards or teacher training programs supported us. It took some time for other national advocacy organizations that belong to Inclusion International to adopt our commitment to inclusion. The perspective of other disability groups was antagonistic. When the negotiations of the text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) began in 2000, the priority of most other groups was to protect “special schools.” However, as the negotiations progressed, as the Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) worked to understand each other’s perspectives, a shift occurred. The final CRPD text called for “an inclusive education system at all levels.”
Although there is still a need for more consensus on the essential elements of an inclusive education system, there is an increasing demand from OPDs for inclusion. At the same time, multi-lateral institutions have recognized the failure of attempts to include excluded groups in education systems one group at a time. The benefits of developing systems that can accommodate all learners are increasingly evident. That has led to the United Nations establishing one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals - “to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education.” That means there is a grassroots ‘bottom-up’ demand for inclusion from many OPDs and a complimentary push from the ‘top-down’ by UNICEF, UNESCO, the World Bank and others for inclusive school systems.
However, new allies have brought new challenges. While the goal of inclusive education was first championed for students with intellectual disabilities and then for students with other disabilities, the current priorities of many governments and funders are the inclusion of additional marginalized groups: girls, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ students, and refugees. Unfortunately, that often means that the needs of students with disabilities, and especially intellectual disabilities, are ignored.
Looking back on the last few decades, how should Canadians evaluate our success? We are far from achieving our goal but also very far from where we began our struggle. We have many more allies helping us achieve success and new tools to draw on. This is the time to reflect on our progress, analyze our strategies, and fuel our forces for the challenges ahead. Inclusion ho!
Diane Richler, C.M., is an international leader advocating for inclusive education and was the Executive Vice President of Inclusion Canada when Community Living 2000 was adopted.
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