Inclusive Early Childhood Education | Report

Running head: INCLUSIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
INCLUSIVE EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION
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Importance of inclusive practices within the early childhood education
The concept of inclusion is dependent on a fundamental belief in the acceptance of every
child to be unique and henceforth have the potential to grow and develop (Lyons, 2013).
Inclusive education for children with debilities together with their non –disabled peers, has been
promoted as a suitable solution for addressing the inequalities in school. By equity, it is meat that
the results are unbiased and just for each of the individual kid rather struggling for the
consequences that are similar for the children with and without any disabilities. Inclusive
education is not only concerned with placement, but providing the type of education that
optimizes the capability and potential of each of the child. After all this, inclusive education has
still not been associated with equity discourse despite of the legislation and the principles.
According to the United Nations General Assembly, it every children’s right to get access to an
inclusive, free of cost and quality primary education equally with the other people in the
community. According to the special education policy of New Zealand, learners with special
needs have the same right, liberty and accountability as people or children without disabilities.
The primary focus of learning under inclusive education is to develop partnership with the
families as well as communities for overcoming the barriers to learning. Cultural acceptance, that
is acknowledging the language and the tradition of the learners is an important context for
development and learning and should be taken in to consideration, while planning for the
program.
In an early childhood education inclusion means that all the children and whanau
(families), families get the opportunity to participate in the local early childhood settings. It has
been stated that inclusive education should be provided irrespective of the gender, caste and

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creed. The Ministry of Education (2017) in Te Whāriki aim to make classrooms inclusive of the
gender, ethnicity, diversity, learning needs, socio-economic status and religious status. An
inclusive education suggests that all tamariki (children), regardless of the type of disability they
are having are entitled to attend their local educational settings and can have their learning and
the developmental needs net (Stark et al., 2011).
With respect to childhood rights, inclusive education is related to children with
disabilities realizing the other rights of children. If the right to education is fulfilled, it causes the
realization of the other rights of the children. An inclusive education needs to be non –
discriminatory, suitable for the best interest of the child, protection from abuse and violence,
support within movement, habilitation and rehabilitation. Inclusive education promotes
participation in the public life, exercising the legal capacity, employment and working and
adequate standards of living (Unicef, 2017).
One of the important aspect of inclusive education is equality. Equality in education
means that each of the child have the same opportunities to receive education. According to the
Education Act every children should get free education, regardless of their current levels of skills
and development. Provision of equal opportunities and resources is an important part of social
justice for children. Teachers who are following inclusive education in the classroom in
classroom can uphold social justice inside the classroom (Mackey & de Vocht-van Alphen,
2016). Creative thinking and wondering about the social justice and equity are some of the
powerful tools in incorporating the thought of social justice in children. Social justice embrace
equal values of all people and their equal right to meet the basic rights of the people. In inclusive
classrooms, the teachers help to provide scaffolding for the children for developing the concepts
of social skills (Mackey & de Vocht-van Alphen, 2016).

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Inclusive education values diversity and the contribution that each of the students bring to
the classroom. In a truly inclusive settings each of the child feels safe and has a safe sense of
belongingness. Since inclusive classrooms use various instructional strategies, the needs of
different students are addressed. It needs to be remembered that creation of inclusive classrooms
needs to acknowledge the rights of the tamariki suffering from disabilities as well as their
Whanau (Powell, 2012). Hence, the teachers need to remove the barriers to inclusive education
such as restructuring of the policies and their cultures such that they can respond to the diversity
of the tamariki and the whanau (Stark et al., 2011).
Additional learning needs for children in an inclusive classroom
An additional learning need of children is Behavior emotional social difficulty (BESD)
where young children demonstrate characteristic like learning difficulty and features of
emotional and behavior difficulties like being withdrawn, isolated, disturbed, disruptive,
hyperactive, lack of concentration, immature social skills or presenting challenging behavior
arising out of complex social needs. The tern includes children and young people suffering from
emotional disturbances and other conduct disorders like attention deficit hypersensitivity
disorder.
Children who suffer from emotional disturbances have the increased risk of developing
abusive behaviors in future such as substance abuse disorder, high risk sexual activities, poor
results in the academics and suicides. It has been stated in a number of papers that the families
play an important role in the prevention and the treatment of such emotional and behavioral
problems.