Inclusive Education: Meaning, Goals, and Fundamental Principles

सार

Inclusive education is a rights-based, equity-driven approach that strengthens school systems to welcome every learner without segregation. Clarifying its meaning, goals, and core principles, the paper links international commitments with classroom practice. Three interdependent goals guide the agenda: equity; access and participation; and meaningful learning outcomes. Principles centre on valuing diversity, restructuring culture, policy, and pedagogy, and designing flexible curricula, assessment, and environments that respond to learner variability. Collaboration across teachers, families, and communities aligns supports with individual needs and advances social justice. It also clarifies shared roles and responsibilities. The review distinguishes full inclusion, partial inclusion, and mainstreaming, arguing that placement should follow supports, not labels. Barriers are analysed across attitudinal, structural, and resource domains, including deficit views of disability, inflexible curricula, inaccessible materials, large classes, and funding constraints. Strategies include sustained professional development, co-teaching, two-way communication, curriculum adaptation, reasonable accommodations, and data-informed cycles of improvement. Assessment is reframed as inclusive evidence of learning that integrates ongoing formative feedback with fair, accessible summative judgments. A conceptual pathway is proposed in which supportive environments and collaborative problem-solving increase participation, belonging, wellbeing, and achievement for all learners. The discussion highlights implications for policy alignment with rights frameworks, school leadership focused on culture change, and teacher education that builds practical competence for inclusive classrooms. Overall, inclusive education emerges as both an improvement strategy and a pathway to a more equitable society, particularly relevant to diverse, resource-constrained contexts.

Keywords: equity, access, participation, inclusion, diversity, collaboration, assessment.