Inclusive education policy and practice in Ghana : air castle or realistic goal?

The closer examination of the Ghanaian national policies and legislations has substantiated Slee (2013, P.89) proposition that "the human rights charters and national legislation around the world will not in and of themselves rid us of exclusion" and that some of the practices that are being advanced in the name of inclusive education have serious exclusionary effects. For instance, the fragmentation of "all children" to "different categories" in the definition of inclusive education; the provision of screening manuals and the emphasis on the medical and psychological screening, diagnosis, referral, the treatment of schoolchildren with disabilities in the pilot inclusive projects; and the continuum of placement of options. The expected impacts of these practices in pilot inclusive schools are that more students will be caught up in the diagnostic net, teachers can name different categories of disabilities and recite their 'aetiologies and symptomologies'. Teachers will then believe that they are not qualified to teach these children and therefore rush for special help or call for more resources (see e.g. Slee, 2003, p.905).