Attitudes and Concerns of Regular Teachers towards Inclusive Education in Brunei Darussalam
Keywords:
inclusive education, implementation, attitudes, concerns, supportsAbstract
For the past fifteen years, Brunei Darussalam, through the Ministry of Education, has made extensive efforts and shifted from complete exclusion to inclusive education (IE). Amongst the stakeholders of inclusive education, regular classroom teachers play very important roles in the implementation. This study attempted to explore regular classroom teachers’ attitudes and concerns on their involvement in teaching children with special needs in the regular classroom setting. The subjects of the study were 113 regular classroom teachers, selected from 18 inclusive primary government schools nationwide. Data were gathered and analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. An instrument which consists of 10 items was used in this study: 5 items dealt with the teachers’ attitudes and 5 on their concerns in their involvement and confidence level in inclusive education. Results indicated that the teachers highly support inclusive education and worked collaboratively to this end. However, from the interview, they expressed concerns like the need for further trainings and provision of appropriate resources to be more effective and confident stakeholders of inclusive education. Recommendations are presented to deal with the teachers’ attitudes and concerns on inclusive education.
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