A SYSTEM APPROACH TOWARDS INCLUSION IN SCHOOLS OF LATVIA

A number of international legislative documents (UNESCO, 1994; UNESCO, 2000; UNESCO, 2005; UNESCO, 2009) emphasize the role of inclusive education in building sustainable communities and stress the right of each and every child to receive quality education. Therefore, the ultimate goal of inclusive education is effective participation of each and every child in the society and reaching their full potential. The legislation emphasizes the need for building inclusive education as a whole school vision and the approach. Inclusive education is defined as an overall educational strategy for the whole school reform. The aim of the article is explore theoretical bases of inclusivity as a whole school philosophical approach that requires teachers’ knowledge and understanding about ways and strategies of building inclusive practice; teachers’ and school administration’s commitment and involvement of building inclusive school, as well as schools’ infrastructure as an essential component favorable for implementing the ideals of inclusivity in practice. Empirical part of the study reflects the analyses of teachers’ self - evaluation of their readiness to work in an inclusive classroom environment. Lickert’s scale was used to determine teachers’ attitude and readiness to build an inclusive school as well as the authors have distinguished the main obstacles of implementing this vision in practice. The respondents (N = 470) of this study are the teachers, psychologists, schools administrators, and specialists directly involved in the decision making. Data analyses were made by SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences program 19.0 for Windows. The authors offer suggestions for the leaders of sustainable schools how to build inclusive schools practice in Latvia. The number of children in schools that took part in this study varies between 24 till 1500. In half of schools that took part in this study the number of children does not exceed 200. The study reveal the obstacles related to implementing inclusive education as viewed by the teachers. The main concern include the following: Lack of financing for implementing inclusive education; Lack of support from the psychologists and special pedagogues; Lack of infrastructure ( equipment, elevators, educational aids for children with visual impairment), The lowest relative significance of issues related to implementing inclusive practice as viewed by the respondents are: Lack of normative bases with the regards to the inclusive education; Strict regulations and bureaucracy within educational establishments that limits the implementation of inclusive practice.