The integration of children with special needs in the mainstream state secondary schools

Abstract

The study investigates the attitudes of head teachers, teachers, parents and classmates towards integration in secondary schools, giving their views and recommendations on how these schools could function better to cater for the special needs of these children. We observed six different case-studies for which we interviewed the above mentioned. We attended seminars on this topic as well as summer camps for children with special needs held by the Education Department in order to help us in our study. From our study we concluded that people have different attitudes towards integration, and although a good number of children with special needs are integrating successfully in the mainstream secondary schools, there is still a lot to be done on our educational system in order to provide these children with the best education possible.