Essay: Inclusive Education in Early Childhood Settings Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of inclusive education within early childhood settings. It begins by defining inclusion and its importance, emphasizing the right of all children and families to high-quality education. The essay critically examines current inclusion policies and legislation, including the UNESCO Salamanca Statement, Dakar Framework, Melbourne Declaration, Disability Discrimination Act, Disability Standards, Racial Discrimination policies, NQS, EYLF, National Professional Standard for Teachers, Statement on Inclusion, and the Code of Ethics. It explores the debates surrounding theories and approaches, the significance of family perspectives, and the role of community networks in shaping educators' pedagogical practices. The essay highlights the responsibilities of educators in relation to inclusion and analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, and impacts of each policy and framework. The essay emphasizes the importance of providing equal opportunities for all children, addressing gaps in policy implementation, and promoting continual growth within the education system. It also discusses the role of teachers in providing quality education, and ensuring that all children have the opportunity to learn and develop in an inclusive environment.

Running head: INCLUSIVE EDUCATON IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
Name of the Students
Name of the University
Author Note

1INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
Introduction
Inclusion happens when it has understood that all the children and their families have the
right to gain high-quality education in early childhood. It is not hampered by some issues. It is
intended to accept as well as remove all the barriers for the full acceptance, participation and
learning for all children (Drewry, Cumming-Potvin & Maor, 2020). It can be performed with the
help of the inclusive classroom. An inclusive classroom is a type of classroom in which students
with and without disabilities can learn together. It is totally opposite to the special classroom
where the students having the disability are able to perform the learning. With the help of the
inclusive principle in early childhood education, children can develop a friendship with other
children. They interact with each other.
In this essay, a critique regarding current inclusion policy as well as legislation related to
early childhood is discussed. In this essay, the debate regarding the theories as well as
approaches of early childhood inclusive principle is performed (Downey, 2007). The importance
of the family perspective as well as community networks for the impact of the educators’
pedagogical practice is elaborated. In this essay, it is discussed regarding the responsibility of the
educator with respect to the relation to the inclusion.
Latest inclusion policy and legislation with respect to early childhood education
UNESCO Salamanca Statement
This statement highlights the education agency of the UNESCO on the international
community for implementing several approaches for practical as well as strategic modifications.
As per Acah-Jnr (2020), Inclusive policy and legislation is a collective procedure for humanity
and schools provide hope for learners. There is a huge popularity of inclusive education in

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Australia. It was mainly accelerated by the Salamanca Statement in 1994 (Cologon, 2014).
Recently, it is adopted by many of the Australian states for providing Sustainable Development
Goals. Following are the few statements for Salamanca Statements.
Education for all
The statement starts with education for all activities. It is very much important for giving
education to all kinds of students in Australia. This statement also helps to provide education to
all types of young people as well as adult persons in the regular education system (Cin & Doğan,
2020). Inclusive education in regular schools is very efficient as well as effective.
Call to the governments
The World Conference conducted on the call to governments for the following criteria:
It gives the highest policy for the improvement of the educational services so that all the children
can take the benefit of this irrespective of the difficulties (Joubert & Harrington, 2020). It helps
to adopt the law for the principle of inclusive education. It also helps to include all the children
in ordinary schools unless there is a specific reason for not doing these. It helps to develop the
demonstration of various projects and it helps to perform several exchanges with some inclusive
schools.
Inclusive education
According to Taylor and Sindhu (2020), it is a very important part of this statement and it
helps some international community to implement the inclusive schooling approach. It is used to
support the special requirements of education.
Providing equal opportunity

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As per Anderson and Boyle (2020), inclusive policy in childhood education is very
important for human dignity. It also improves human rights. Special needs to education provide
various methods of teaching (Mann et al., 2020). The main gap in this policy is related to the
enrolment of vulnerable children due to the global primary education in many countries (Wallace
et al., 2020). This policy is very important because it mainly focuses on education for all policy
and it makes the schools more efficient for providing more education (Wallace et al., 2020). It
also helps the education system to provide continual growth.
Dakar framework
According to Tamatea (2020), it was come into picture in April, 2000 at World Education
Forum in Senegal, South Africa. The Framework of this was totally related to the outcome of
the Education for all 2000 assessments, which was started by World Conference on Education.
It contained several analysis of basic education in all over the world and it helped to calculate the
progress of the Jomtien goals (UNESCO 2000, p.3). UNESCO is conducted the program named
“Education for All”. It involves the bilateral and multi-lateral activities (O’Shea, 2020). The
Framework highlights the blueprint for the development by 2015 of the education system in the
entire universe. This framework highlights the truth of the early childhood education in the entire
world. As per Dombroski (2016), the Dakar framework provides lesser importance in the quality
of education, pre-school care as well as the literacy of the adult people. According to Dakar and
Sengal (2020), it has the ability to implement the Education for All frameworks in an efficient
manner in all over the globe. With the help of this framework, 164 governments achieved targets
of Education for All (O’Shea, 2020).

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Melbourne declaration
It has two main targets for early childhood education in Australia. These are as follows:
The education system of Australia highlights excellence with the help of this policy.
It helps to develop the learning capability as well as the confidence of the young learners
(Cologon, 2014). It helps to develop the active as well as informed citizens in Australia.
It is included in the following eight areas of the Commitment of Action. It is used to develop a
strong partnership, for supporting the quality in educating the children, enhancement of the early
childhood education, improvement of the middle year’s development, promotion of the world-
class assessment as well as curriculum, enhancement of the result of the teaching for the children
and young people, improving transparency as well as accountability and providing support to the
senior students as well as youth transitions.
According to Rizvui and Lingard (2010), the implementation of this policy will be very
expensive. According to Lovat (2020), this policy is very efficient because it helps the
government to provide the National Quality Framework for early childhood education. It helps to
promote the Digital Education in Australia. It helps to provide some educational advancement
with the help of several technologies (Downey, 2007). As per Rizvi and Lingard (2010), it
concentrates upon the development of the teachers for providing quality education.
Disability discrimination act
According to Duncan et al. (2020), the main target of this act is to promote the same
opportunity to the people of Australia. It helps provide the rights to disabled people in many
areas such as housing, education, and the provision of goods as well as services. As per Sharma

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and Mullick (2020), it has some similarity with other disability discrimination act in the entire
globe. This law helps to provide equal opportunity legislation aimed at the prevention of racial
discrimination (Drewry et al., 2020). It highlights that disability discrimination is unlawful. It
fulfills all areas of employment and education. According to Bow et al. (2020), it helps the
disabled children to participate in various programs and it provides some full access to the
children in the area of early education.
According to Mclean (2020), people may need to seek more costly legal service options because
of funding results in the excessive demand for subsidized legal services (Cologon, 2014)).
As per Tenati (2020), it helps provide equal rights to all the disabled people in Australia. It also
helps to provide equal rights and access for the disabled people for Australia (Cologon, 2014).
Disability Standards
It is an Australian Law that is under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992. According to
Tiller et al. (2020), the students having the disability should have similar opportunities as well as
choices in the education the same as students having without a disability. Teachers should
provide them some meaningful as well as dignified learning (Hai & Yusuke, 2020). According to
Koh (2020), the significant gaps find in the level of service in the disability standards in
Australia. As per Spronk et al. (2020), because of the disability standards in Australia, many
schools take some positive steps regarding participation as well as accessing education (Tennant
et al., 2020).

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Racial discrimination
According to Yu (2020), the Australian Human Rights Commission starts working on
early childhood education as well as care sector for preventing racial discrimination. It helps to
provide the ideal setting for the children to initiate the learning activities regarding their rights
(Joubert & Harrington, 2020). According to Wingfield & Chavez (2020), there are lots of
disadvantages of racial discrimination in early childhood education. These are as follows:
It decreases the student’s performance
Lesser access to the routines as well as accessing the preventive healthcare
It leads to a huge amount of absenteeism for the children (Ristevski et al. 2020).
It receives lesser opportunities for summer activities and gets less amount of opportunity to the
background knowledge and organizational skills.
As per Tenati (2020), the disability discrimination act provides equal rights to every student to
reduce racial discrimination in early education in the childhood of Australia.
NQS
According to Wong and Waniganayake (2020), it sets a high-quality standard for early
childhood education and cares in Australia. It has seven quality areas in early childhood
education in Australia. These are as follows:
Educational program as well as practice
Health and safety policy of the children

7INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
Physical environment
Arrangement of the employees
Relation with the children
Governance and leadership
A collaborative partnership with families and communities
According to Siraj, Howard, and Kingston (2020), National Quality Framework does not
provide the idea regarding the relationship between the physical activity of the children and the
sedentary behavior and ECEC routines of Australian education of early childhood (Street et al.,
2020).
According to Ghazi (2020), NQF is very efficient in Australian education because:
Improvement of the educator to the child ratios
Educators having skills and qualifications
Providing huge support to the learning of children.
EYLF
According to Lee (2020), EYLF is the foundation for ensuring the children in the early
years of experiences for quality teaching and learning. It is developed by the Education
Department of Government of Australia. As per Blewitt et al. (2020), it does not provide the
intervention mapping in the early childhood education system in Australia (Wallace et al., 2020).
According to Lowrie and Larkin (2020), EYLF provides lots of learning opportunities to the
children of Australia. It also provides a good environment in the Australian childhood education
sector (Wallace et al., 2020).

8INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
The national professional standard for teachers
According to Mockler (2020), it a public statement that reflects the quality of teaching. It
provides efficient teaching quality and improvement of educational results (Hai & Yusuke,
2020). There is no such gap found in this policy. According to Looker (2020), it helps to provide
some advanced educational programs to early childhood education in Australia. It also provides
some quality teaching to Australian children (Joubert & Harrington, 2020). That is why it is very
efficient.
Statement on inclusion
According to Jones (2020), it is treated as the educational discourse in Australia. At
present, there are no standard guidelines provided for this purpose (Mann et al., 2020). It is used
to measure success at the federal level. As per Maltaglati (2020), there are several gaps in the
statement of inclusion. These are as follows:
Disabled students may be disruptive
Issues of bullying
As per McGill (2020), it helps to increase the trust of the teachers and it also provides
quality learning. That is why it is very efficient (O’Shea, 2020).
Code of ethics
According to Sinclair (2020), it helps to provide the teachers with some quality
behaviours that highlight several expectations of the profession. Code of ethics does not have
any gap in early childhood education in Australia (Ristevski et al., 2020). But it is very much

9INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
efficient. According to Xu et al. (2020), it helps to give rights to all the students in education. It
helps to provide the safety of the students in the education sector.
Supporting young children’s right
According to Desai (2020), it helps educators to provide sufficient guide to the teachers
regarding working with the young student. It does not have any gaps, but it helps to advocate the
right of young children in Australian education (Street et al., 2020). According to Collings et al.
(2020), it helps the teachers to provide quality education to the children and it also helps to
enhance the daily practice.
Theories and approaches for early education inclusive practice
Adaption of Space, materials, and types of equipment
According to Ramberg and Watkins (2020), with the help of this policy, children with
and without a disability can access the physical space, materials as well as types of equipment. It
also helps the student to use various materials in meaningful formats (Tennant et al., 2020). But
if the pieces of equipment are costly enough then it will be very difficult for the teachers as well
as his assistants to provide these to the students.
Resolution of various conflicts
According to Saleh and Sultan (2020), teachers have set some rules which help children
to provide positive social behavior as well as stop the conflict. Teachers are able to search for
more efficient procedures for performing the negotiations (Wallace et al., 2020). According to
Dincer et al. (2020), it may happen that, sometimes teachers are not able to provide the entire

10INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
focus on providing the help of the student. For that purpose, they are not able to resolve the
conflict among the students.
Importance of the family perspective
As per Singh and Zhang (2018), Australia is the leader in the area of early childhood
education. Their early childhood education curriculum is very famous in the entire world. It is
very much holistic in nature. According to Te One (2013), it has some bi-cultural foundations.
As per Zhang & Law (2011), it is related to the challenges of the teachers of early childhood
education that is used to support the cultural identity. Many people show that it is very important
to include culture in early childhood education (Walsh & Keary, 2020). Many psychologists
highlight that there is a massive need for culture and environment in child development.
Vygotskian’s theory is used to explain human development. It is totally related to the child as
well as human development.
Responsibility of the educator
Collaboration
According to Effron (2020), being an inclusion teacher, a person should prepare the
lesson plan, creation of the assessment. But the focus of the educator should be on the
scaffolding of several activities for meeting several needs of the student (Warren, Vialle &
Dixon, 2016). It is used to separate the instruction to meet the expectations of the children of
Australia.
Accommodations

11INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
As per Stumph and Hayes (2020), IEP contains all the accommodation and teachers
should follow these to meet all the students’ requirements. It helps a teacher to go through all the
tests orally and make some modifications in the homework assignments (Wise et al. 2020).
Conclusion
According to Smythes (2013), social modification may provide any consequences with
the help of collective commitments for the various ideas regarding inclusive education in
Australia. The challenge of educators is provided space for the modification in inclusive
education. Smythes (2013) views this one optimistically. He says that if an issue is resolved with
the help of creativity then change is possible for inclusive education. Researchers say that the
current strategy must not meet all the expectations of Inclusive Education.

12INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN EARLY CHILDHOOD SETTINGS
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