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Removing Perceptual Barriers to Inclusive

Education
(A Study on Teachers’ Perception on Inclusive
Education Policy)
Abdul Salim1, Gunarhadi 1, Furqon Hidayatullah1
1
The Faculty of Teaching Training Program, Sebelas Maret University, Indonesia

Compulsory education has been rolling for a long, but a big number of children with special needs (CSN) remain
unaccessible to schools. Positive teachers’ perception is believed to be supportive to the success of inclusive education. This
research is intended to (1) describe the perception of teachers and educational staffs, (2) identify the threats of inclusion, and
(3) recommend the solution over the discrimination. This research is an explorative survey by involving teachers and
educational staffs represented purposively by ten regencies in Central Java, Indonesia. The data was collected by means of
questionnaires and interview an analized quantitatively and qualitatively. The result shows 45% of teachers and educational
staffs are unfamiliar with the concept of inclusive education, 44.5% refused the mainstream on CSN in inclusive schools,
and 53.4% of them are kin to the educational service for CSN. The research concluded that teachers and educational staffs in
the Ministry have poor perception to inclusive education.

Keywords: inclusive education, perception, policy, satisfaction.

1. INTRODUCTION policy has a strong implication that inclusive education is

The practice of inclusive education has been
running for a long in Indonesia, even though it was
legally launched in 2003 under the Directorate General of
Secondary Education No.380/C.66/MN/2003, This act is
even strengthened by the issuence of Inclusive Education
Act No.70 Tahun 2009 under the Ministry of Education.
One important point to be noted from this legal act is the
existing compulsary that at least one inclusive school of
elementary, yunior and senior secondary levels in each
subdistrict all over Indonesia. Upon the implementation
of this act, there should be 11.406 inclusive schools
established to accommodate CSN in the community. This
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the responsibility of the government wchich is delegated
to schools to accommodate all CSN remaining in the
community. The fact, however, the total school enrolment
is far beyond the expected number. Data in the Center for
Special Education Development shows 5.957 (27.879%)
of CSN in Central Java are not permeated to schools (BP
Diksus 2015). The surprising fact indicates 173 Special
Schools and 554 inclusive schools are already fully
enrolled by CSN in the respective province
(http://www.bpdiksus.org/). Meanwhile, Ministry of
Religion has not taken taken any action in term of policy
of enrollment CSN either to Special Schools or Inclusive
Schools. It means the CSN human right to education is
 Adv. Sci. Lett. X, XXX–XXX, 201XRESEARCH ARTICLE
not fully taken for granted as the important part of school
reponsibility. It is believed, however, that inclusive
education is the solution to such a problem.
Ideally, inclusive education is defined as a policy for
the school society members such as teachers, head master,
and all other staffs to be responsible as to how the CSN
in the respective schools develop on their own basis of
potentials and capabilities (Gaad & Khan, 2007; Ajuwon,
2008). Inclusive education is not just a matter of placing
CSN in a regular class to learn together with the non-CSN
peers (Rose, 2007; Gaad & Khan, 2007). Rather, it means
giving opportunity as such to enable them to perform
their best of actualization (Charema, John. 2010). The
success of inclusive education, in particular, is indicated
by the extent of responsibility which is predominantly
determined by the perception among the teachers and
other school human resource towards the policy of
inclusive education.
One thing to be noted here is that the success of
inclusive education is much justified by several factors.
One of the dominant factors is the teachers’ perception
towards the policy of inclusive education. Positive
perception will determine the degree of willingness to
support the object accordingly. In relation to inclusive
education, positve perception on the policy will affect
positive support on its implementation, and so is the vice
versa (Lambe, Jackie. 2007). The purpose of the research
is to see the impact of perception more closely on the the
degree of satisfaction, knowledge and skills of catering
the CSN in regular schools.
2. METHOD OF RESEARCH
This research is an explorative survey involving 45
teachers and shool staffs under the Ministry of Religion
representing purposively from 10 regencies of Central
Java Indonesia. Data on perception was collected by
means of questionnaire containing the items of teachers’
satisfaction, knowldge, and teaching experience with the
reliability level of 0.85 of Alpha CornBach. The data were
analized by both quantitative and qualitative description
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Teachers and school staffs’ satisfaction
The term satisfaction refers to an agreement of
accepting or refusing CSN in the regular school settings
so called an inclusive school. From 45 respondents, the
data shows the following distribution of answers:
Tabel. 1.Teachers’ Satisfaction towards Inclusion.
The data shows 13,33 % of the respondents
strongly agree, 42,22 % agree, 22,22 % fairly agree,
15,56 % disagree, and 6,67 % stronly disagree. The figure
indicates more respondents feel satisfied with the policy.
It means more teachers and school staffs have positive
perception. Hence, they are willing to give better service
to CSN (Gunarhadi,et.al. 2016). Such various responses,
however, indicate that not everyone of the respondents
agree to accept CSN to be included in an inclusive class.
The gap is there, it is true that a bigger number (55%) of
respondents agree to accept CSN in their class, but the
rest (45%) state differently. Such a different perception
among the teachers and school staffs will trigger some
conflicts in terms of decision making on and its
implementation of inclusive education. The victims,
accodingly, are those of CSN already included in the
class. In line with this controvercy, a research by Gary
and Vaughan (2004) teachers with positive perception
have high awareness of humanistic needs of CSN for
education. Unfortuately, a group with different perception
will bring about a prolong conflict and hinder the
predetermined objective of inclusive education.
No Reasons for Excluding CSN
The second point to measure the teachers and school
staffs’ perception is by responding to a statement whether
or not CSN should be removed due to no progress is ever
made in the inclusive class. The responses to the
statement is reflected in the following table.
Tabel. 2. Should CSN Remain in the Mainstream Class
Good?
From the table, the data shows 8,89 % of the
teachers and school staffs strongly agree, 17,78 % of
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the agree, 44,44 % fairly agree, 22,22 % disagree, and
6,67 % strongly disagree to exlude CSN even if no
progress is made during the class. To this statement, a
lot of teachers and school staffs seem to be confused.
Such a phenomenon is found in the research by
Richard (2007), that most teachers are confused to
behave upon CSN with no progress during the
inclusive class. Other researches by Ballard (2007) and
Ajuwon (2008) also shows the fact there is a tendency
to remove CSN to Special Schools when they do not
make any benefit from the inclusive schools. When
they believe that special schools will fit better for their
academic achievement, the threat of inclusion is there.
Knowledge on Inclusive Education
This questionnaire is to measure the perception of
teachers and school staff through a statement of how
much they understand and internalize the concept of
inclusive education. The table below points the result
of the responses
Tabel 3 Knowledgeability of Inclusive Education
This table indicates 13,33 % of the teachers and school
staffs are very knowledgeable, 33,33 % knowledgeable,
15,56% fairly knowledgeable, 28,89 % poorly
knowledgeable, and 8,89% are very poorly
knowledgeable about the concept of inclusive education.
It implies most of them do not have enough capability in
giving the educational service to the CSN since they have
limited knowledge about the concept of inclusive
education. As a consequence, they might exhibit poor
willingness to deal with CSN in the inclusive class. This
is in line with a research finding by Manisah, Mustapha &
Zizan Mohd Jelas (2006) stating that specific
characteristics of inclusive education is indicated by the
willingness to accept CSN in the inclusive class.
http://www.internationaljournalofspecialeducation.com).
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4. CONCLUSION
The research draws the following conclusions. First,
as many as 55% of teachers and school staffs under the
Ministry of Religion agree to accept CSN included in a
class together with non-CSN. However, the rest (45%) are
arguing for different reasons. Such a different perception
can lead to disruption of the phylosophy of inclusive
education. The impact, then is creating CSN as a real
victims of inclusive education. To avoid this impact,
therefore, a number of 73.5% teachers and school staffs
agree that CSN with no progress being in inclusive may
be removed to special schools. The second, as many as
53.4% of teachers and schoolstaffs are not familiar with
the concept of inclusive education. This implies that they
even have poorer skill of teaching CSN in inclusive
classes. The victims, again, are CSN who are already in
inclusive school settings.
To this condition, it is recommended that:
1.Teachers and school staffs under the Ministry of
Religion in Central Java need training and and education
to improve their knowledge and skills of teaching CSN in
inclusive schools.
2. There should be law enforcement so as to build the
awareness on the right of CSN to the quality education. In
addition, law enforcement is also believed to have power
in in changing the mindset to more positive perception
and attitude towards CSN and their future.
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