Group 2 — Service Design for Inclusive Education.
The proposed system is involves the community and is maintained by the community and can be progressively adapted and improved by them. It follows the meta-design approach for functioning. It gives a rough framework of how inclusive education can be managed with community participation. The overall sustainability, social or economic, of the system would then depend on the participation of the stakeholders and the value they bring to it at various levels of the system.
This system could take a while to present visible results. But, those results would not just be restricted to the school but extend out to the community as well. Inside the school, all students will learn to adapt to an inclusive environment. Their gradual progression from Class 1 to Class 10 will help them improve interactions with all kinds of people; develop empathy, responsibility and creativity. These children, the future of the country, will go out in the world and help improve the community.
Similarly, community activities and participation will encourage the community to be more understanding and accepting of PWDs, realize their strengths and capabilities and contribute to providing an inclusive environment for them. This will help reduce stigmas associated with PWDs, which will in turn prevent its progression to the future generation.
Hence, this system works from both outside (community) to inside (classroom) and vice versa (i.e., from classroom to community) to create an inclusive environment for CWDs at various levels thus catering to the holistic development of all kinds of children.
System Limitations and Threats
Limitation
There are few limitations in the proposed system at various levels -classroom level, school level and outside the school environment. In classroom there are limitations like students to teacher ratio and teacher selection criteria. Limitations at school level are that education restricted to only few disabilities, not all disabilities are considered. We did not focus on corruption involved in the school, ignorance and irresponsibility of staff and management of the school. There are other limitations outside the school like lack of social responsibility of communities, politics involved in the society and facilities for CWD’s outside the school.
Threats
Threats are possibilities where our system might fail or it might not be suitable for all scenarios. Threats are involved at classroom level, school level and community level. In classroom there can be threats like peer bullying, understanding levels of diverse students and their personalities by teachers, issues in group work among students and learning abilities of students. There can also be chances of unhealthy competition and clashes in the classroom. It might be overburdening to the classroom environment if there is large diversity of disabilities. Also, school might not provide enough resources for students and teachers. Staff, management and teachers behavior can also be unpredictable. Community may not participate because of lack of motivation and parents might not get enough time to spend with CWD children and assist with learning.
