| Description of good practice: |
By and large Inclusive Education in Bangladesh is policy focused. For over a decade or so the government of the country has taken some major steps that legitimize and forward the practice of inclusive education in the reality. The aim of this section is to detail the legislative or constitutional framework in which policy choices are made with regard to inclusion in the two education systems, namely primary and secondary education.
The guideline for IE in Bangladesh can be traced back to the policy documents developed in 1990s. Compulsory Primary Education Act, appeared in 1990, is the first government policy in which the education for the children with special needs was brought under legal jurisdiction. A number of national policy guidelines have been in government’s central agenda to implement inclusive education and to obtain the goal of education for all. The following sections present a critical analysis of the government major policy guidelines.
The Compulsory Primary Education (CPE) Act 1990:
In line with the education for all (EFA) declaration, The Compulsory Primary Education Act (CPE) Act has been enacted in Bangladesh in 1990. Primary education has been declared compulsory and free for all children by this Act. Based on the CPE Act parents can be fined if they do not send their children to school. It is, however, important to note that there are a number of sections which conflict with the goals of education for all. For example, section 27.3.3 (e) states that “The decision of a primary education officer that it is not desirable to enter a child in a primary education institute on account of its being mentally retarded” (MOPME, 1990, p. 1). Therefore, this section might have been added to protect the parents of children who are intellectually challenged, this particular section directly against of inclusion as it indicates segregation of children with SEN.
Although the primary education was declared free, it is evident that after 23 years since the adaptation of this Act, the goal of education for all has not been achieved (Islam, 2011). One of the arguments of this limited success is that the policy was not being supported based on the socio-economic context of Bangladesh. The opportunity cost for each children, particularly in the rural Bangladesh remains high, which might have refrained parents from sending their children to schools (Chowdhury, Chowdhury, Hoque, Ahmed & Sultana, 2009; Sabates, Hossain & Lewin, 2010). Other than opportunity cost, the policy failed to recognize accessory cost, parents’ expectation on educational outcome (Hossain, 2011), school accessibility (Khanam, 2008; Sabates et al., 2010 ), flexibility of student contact hour with local context, engagement of local and parents actively (Malak, 2013), field level monitoring
affordability and over all awareness regarding schooling.
Bangladesh Persons with Disability Welfare Act - 2001:
In order to meet the commitments of Salamanca statement, 1994 and Dakar Framework, 2002, the first legislation on disability was made in 2001 named ‘Bangladesh Persons with Disability Welfare (BPDW) Act’. The Act is comprehensive in terms of covering different aspects of persons with disabilities including definition, education, health care, employment, transport facilities, social security and so on. Particularly, in education, this Act has been recognized as the very first initiative to ensure education as a legislative right for children with disabilities. The Act postulates-
"Create opportunities for free education to all children with disabilities below 18 years of age and provide them books and equipments free of cost or at low-cost. (Part D:2). (Ministry of Social Welfare [MSW], 2001)"
Despite having several important initiatives for students with SEN, the Act itself can be considered as barriers to inclusive education for children with SEN. First of all, this Act seems to lean on medical model of disability (Šiška & Habib, 2012). The definition of a person with disabilities articulated on the basis of clinical feature of the individual. For instance, a person with visual impairment is referred to as “ i. No vision in any single eye, or ii. in both eyes, or iii. visual acuity not exceeding 6/60 or 20/200 …” (MSW, 2001). Consequently, in section D (1), the Act suggests segregated school setting for students with SEN.
"To encourage establishment of Specialised Education Institutions to cater to the special
needs of the special categories of children with disabilities, to design and develop specialised curriculum and write special text books and to introduce Special Examination
System, if situations so demand. (MSW, 2001, p. 11)"
Interestingly, in the third section the act calls for creating opportunity for the children with
disability to study in the mainstream education.
"Endeavor to create opportunities for integration of students with disabilities in the usual
class-set-up of regular normal schools wherever possible (MSW, 2001, p. 12)."
Since the act has been enacted from medical and charity point of view, the act remains weak to articulate inclusive education for the children with SEN. It is also to note that this act has been initiated by the Ministry of Social Welfare instead of Ministry of Education or Law Justice and parliamentary affairs. It implies that disability has been perceived as charity by policy makers (Šiška & Habib, 2012). It can be argued that due to welfare attitudes towards disability, the education of students with SEN have not been considered as a right. As a result, inclusive education has not been stated clearly through this act. |
