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The challenges of inclusive education and its implementation in schools: The South African perspective
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Inclusive education is the term used to describe an education system in which all learners are accepted and fully included, educationally and socially. The process of inclusion proves to have challenges in developing countries such as South Africa which adopted it a bit later than the developed countries. Research has mentioned that amongst other challenges is the lack of resources and overcrowding. Hence, this paper debates and discusses the challenges in the implementation of inclusive education in South African schools. The study was designed as a multiple case study research in which a qualitative research approach was employed. Three schools in the Buffalo City Metro and three participants per school participated in the study. Qualitative data analysis was grounded on an interpretive philosophy. The findings revealed that overcrowding, insufficient training, lack of knowledge and skills of educators were the overarching themes that resulted in educators feeling a sense of inadequacy to teach in an inclusive education classroom. The study will cover the challenges faced in the implementation of inclusive education. Therefore, the study recommends that inclusive education should cater to all learners irrespective of the type of disability.
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“In South Africa, many special needs learners find themselves in mainstream classrooms, and teachers are expected to adapt curriculum for the inclusive education needs of their learners (Mpu & Adu, 2021).”
From Using LEGO® Six Bricks® as an educational resource to address challenges pre-service teachers face during school-based teaching practice (2025) · cites this paper as Mpu & Adu, 2021
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“Existing open-education resources for using Six Bricks® in a Foundation Phase classroom focused on mainstream activities related to the national curriculum in numeracy, literacy and life skills kills (Mpu & Adu, 2021;Schuelka et al., 2020).”
From Using LEGO® Six Bricks® as an educational resource to address challenges pre-service teachers face during school-based teaching practice (2025) · cites this paper as Mpu & Adu, 2021
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Metadata
- Authors
- Mpu, Y., & Adu, E. O.
- Affiliations
- University of Fort Hare (ZA)
- Venue
- Perspectives in Education
- Publisher
- University of the Free State
- Published
- 2021-06-11
- Volume
- 39
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 225-238
- ISSN
- 0258-2236 (ISSN-L)
- 2519-593X
- OpenAlex
- W3189400057
- Cited by
- 105
- References
- 50
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 39 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 18.02
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Perspectives in Education (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Inclusive Education and Diversity
- Social Sciences › Education › Collaborative Teaching and Inclusion
- Social Sciences › Education › Education Pedagogy and Practices
- Keywords
- inclusive education, implementation barriers, school overcrowding, teacher professional development, disability, South African schools
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