Research Outline

The Indian Army envisions graduating from segregated schools to inclusive schools by mainstreaming all children with special needs into the Army Public School eco-system. The attitudes, concerns, and sentiments of primary stakeholders i.e., parents, teachers, and special educators for effective implementation of inclusive education are therefore imperative to understand. An exploratory sequential design is used,wherein;semi-structured interviews, mailed questionnaires, and focus group discussions were conducted, followed by the administration of the “Sentiments, Attitudes, Concerns of Inclusive Education-Revised (SACIE­ R)” instrument, which was followed by a survey. Overall findings underlined that not only a top­ down approach, wherein; school management drives the initiative by equipping schools with requisite infrastructure and empowers teachers with the necessary training, buta pull model should also be considered to ensure absolute readiness of the school to include children with special needs in the classrooms.