Abstract:

In 2001, South Africa issued White Paper 6 (WP6) on Special Needs Education: Building an Inclusive Education and Training System of 2001 as policy and pledged to rollout it in 20 years to all Eastern Cape schools. That roused many research topics to concerned researchers. In this paper, four sub-districts in Eastern Cape were purposively selected and used as a case study. These assisted the researcher to enter the world of educators (SMTs and Office-Based educators/Inclusive Education Specialists). This study targeted key stakeholders (teachers of different levels of operations) in as far as implementation of Inclusive Education classrooms to contribute to the framework of the implementation of Inclusive education standards in the Eastern Cape Department of Education. The research paradigm adopted was interpretivism, which centers on understanding the subjective world of human experiences. In each district, one SMT member was from a Public Ordinary School and one from a Full-Service School. The qualitative research approach was adopted whereby interviews were used to collect data. The Inclusive Education Specialist and SMTs’ ideas, suggestions and recommendations on inclusive education classroom implementation were explored deeply by employing structured interview questions, which strived to get more perceptions of the educators. The findings of the study revealed that the all-Inclusive Education District of the sub-districts is between 9 and 10 years implementing inclusive education instead of 19 years as per WP6. Districts Organigram design for Inclusive Education implementation in Eastern Cape was finalized in 2006 and implemented in 2008. Another finding was that the involvement of SMTs in monitoring the Individual Support Plan (ISPs) in Public Ordinary School (POS) is not prioritized and in Full-Service School is satisfactory. Post-Provisioning norms (PPN) do not show Learners with Special Education Needs (LSEN) although submitted in the South African Statistic Management System (SASAMS). The findings further revealed that the teachers find it difficult to implement ISPs due to overload and overcrowding more especially in POS. Diversity of teaching methodology that considers individual teaching is being compromised due to overload and overcrowding in both FSSs and POSs. The study recommends that in 2021, which will be 20 years since 2001 implementation of inclusive education in SA (WP6), in Eastern Cape, the evaluation of implementation must talk 13 years not 20 years. Rectify the non-appearance of LSEN of Public Ordinary School in SASAMI MUST be with urgency to improve PPN and individual attention. Differentiated learning environment or remedial class for learners who experience barriers to learning, teaching, and development is not an option but a MUST in ALL Eastern Cape Schools.

Keywords:

Inclusive Education, Remedial Education, Remedial Education Diagnostic (Assessment) Tools, Teaching Strategies, Implementation.