Abstract:

Background:
The right to free and compulsory education for all preschool children, irrespective of cognitive, physical, psychosocial and/or speech/language skills is upheld within the legislation of Sri Lanka (Parliament of Sri Lanka, 1997). The shift worldwide towards more inclusive educational opportunities for children with special educational needs has resulted in a combination of special schools and centres, special units within mainstream schools or integrated educational settings and to a lesser extent, inclusive educational contexts in the country. That said, differing constructs and perspectives of ‘inclusion’ as well as the availability of resources have influenced the implementation of the inclusive educational policy (Ahuja & Mendis, 2002; Furuta, 2006, 2009).

Objectives:
To discover teacher perceptions and terminology on ‘inclusive education’ and identify perceived training needs.

Research Design & Methods:
60 teachers from the Northern and Western provinces of Sri Lanka completed a survey questionnaire validated for India (Das, 2001) and a thematic analysis and statistical analysis was undertaken. In addition, open-interviews conducted with key informants were analyzed using the principles of Framework Analysis (Ritchie & Spencer, 1994).

Findings & Conclusions:
The findings reflect a lack of coherence in the understanding of ‘inclusion’ and the influence of concepts of power, agency and selflessness in teacher identity and in the self-assessment of training needs.

Keywords:

Disabilities, special needs, inclusion, teacher training, pedagogy, perceptions, terminology.