Opinion: India’s inclusive education gap—why putting children in classrooms is not enough

The next phase of inclusive education must go beyond enrolment to ensure meaningful participation, learning and support for every child

By Dr Vangeepuram Sreenatha Chary

The classroom is busy. The teacher explains a lesson, questions are answered, notebooks fill with words, and the bell eventually rings. In the middle of it all sits a child who has been present throughout—but has understood little, participated less and perhaps spoken to no one. The attendance register records the child as present. The education system may record the child as enrolled. Yet neither tells us whether learning actually happened.

---

This is the uncomfortable gap at the heart of inclusive education. A seat in a classroom is an important beginning, but it is not inclusion. The real test is whether every child can understand, participate, progress and experience education with dignity.

Inclusion Paradox

India has made inclusion an explicit educational commitment. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016, requires recognised or government-funded institutions not merely to admit children with disabilities, but to provide accessibility, reasonable accommodation and individualised support, and to monitor their participation, attainment and completion of education. Yet the distance between policy and classroom experience remains the real test.

The Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+) is India’s national educational database for school education. UDISE+ 2024–25 records more than 21 lakh Children With Special Needs (CWSN) across school education. Telangana alone records 53,588 CWSN at the elementary level. These numbers demonstrate both progress and responsibility. Enrolment tells us that children have entered the system; it does not tell us whether the system is enabling them to learn. That is India’s inclusion paradox: we can count how many children are inside classrooms more easily than we can tell how fully they are participating in them.

Classroom: The Real Test

Inclusive education succeeds or fails not in policy documents, but in the everyday encounter between a child, a teacher and a lesson. A ramp may help a learner enter the classroom, but it cannot make the lesson accessible. For that, teaching itself must become responsive. A child with low vision may need accessible text; one with hearing impairment may require appropriate communication support; a learner with intellectual disability may benefit from simplified instructions, repetition and smaller learning steps; another may need assistive technology, additional time or modified assessment.

We can count how many children are inside classrooms more easily than we can tell how fully they are participating in them. That’s the inclusion paradox

The principle is not to create a different education for every child, but to create multiple pathways into the same learning experience. India’s own inclusive-education framework recognises this through reasonable accommodation, individualised support, appropriate teaching-learning materials, assistive devices and suitable pedagogical measures. The real question, therefore, is no longer simply “Is the child in the classroom?” It is “Can the child access what the classroom is trying to teach?”

Teachers Can’t Do It Alone

Much of the success of inclusion ultimately rests with teachers, but expecting a classroom teacher to meet every specialised need without adequate support is neither realistic nor fair. A teacher managing a diverse class must teach the curriculum, assess learning, maintain classroom engagement and respond to widely varying abilities.

Inclusion cannot simply become one more responsibility added to that list. What teachers need is an ecosystem of support. Special educators can help adapt instruction and learning materials; rehabilitation professionals can address functional, communication and accessibility needs; counsellors can support emotional and social adjustment; and parents can provide insights that no assessment form can capture.

School leaders must ensure that these professionals work together rather than in isolation. India’s own legal and educational frameworks envisage trained teachers and professionals, resource centres and continuing capacity-building to support inclusive education. The principle is simple: inclusion may happen in one classroom, but it cannot be delivered by one teacher alone.

Measure Learning

What gets measured often determines what receives attention. In inclusive education, enrolment is an important indicator—but it is only the first one. A child can remain on the school register for years without participating meaningfully, achieving expected learning outcomes or experiencing genuine inclusion. India’s own disability law points towards a better measure. The RPwD Act requires monitoring the participation, attainment and completion of education of every student with disability. Policy evaluation should reflect that principle.

Alongside enrolment, schools and education departments should ask: Is the child attending regularly? Participating in classroom activities? Receiving appropriate accommodations? Making academic progress? Moving successfully from one stage of education to the next? This matters particularly because UDISE+ 2024–25 recorded about 9.44 lakh CWSN at primary level but only 1.49 lakh at higher secondary level—figures that underline the importance of examining progression and retention across stages. Inclusion should be counted not by seats occupied, but by opportunities actually realised.

From Policy to Practice

India does not need another declaration of commitment to inclusive education; it needs to make existing commitments visible in everyday classrooms. The next phase must therefore focus on implementation: prepare teachers continuously, strengthen special-educator and rehabilitation support, make learning materials and assessments accessible, use assistive technology where appropriate, involve parents as partners, and hold schools accountable for participation and progress—not merely admission.

These priorities are already reflected in India’s legal and educational framework; the challenge is ensuring that support reaches the child who needs it. Most importantly, inclusion must become part of how a school thinks, teaches and measures success—not a separate programme activated when a child with disability enters the classroom. The real transformation occurs when diversity is anticipated rather than treated as an exception.

The success of inclusive education will not be measured by how many children with disabilities sit inside ordinary classrooms, but by how many are able to learn, participate, progress—and leave those classrooms knowing that education was designed for them too.

(The author is a consultant psychologist, rehabilitation professional, academic & research mentor, and Guinness World Record holder)