The right to education (2009), the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016) and the National Education Policy (2020) have increased the national awareness of inclusive education in India. The attitude of teachers is a crucial determinant of the success of the inclusive practices, particularly in the secondary schools where the academic pressure and diversity in the classroom are excessive. The quantitative research problem is the investigation of a difference in attitude towards inclusiveness among teachers at the secondary schools in government and private schools in Dehradun District, Uttarakhand. The sampling strategy used was stratified random sampling, where there were 100 teachers (50 government and 50 private). A standardized Teachers Attitude Scale Towards Inclusive Education (TASTIE) (Sood & Anand, 2011) was used to collect data, which was analysed based on descriptive statistics and an independent samples t-test. Results show that both groups have rather positive attitude but government school teachers exhibit much more favourable attitude to inclusion compared to that of teachers in a private school. The research blames this on the varying exposure to government-sponsored training, divergent student makeup in state-run schools as well as policy-driven accountability. Teacher education implications, school leadership and policy intervention implications are discussed. Such recommendations as the reinforcement of inclusive pedagogy training in the private schools, more sustained professional development and more institutional support systems are suggested.
Tripathi et al. (Sat,) studied this question.