Reconstitution and implementation of national education policy through state-NGO collaboration: Inclusion education in policy and primary school practice for the blind in India

This dissertation explores the trajectory of the inclusion education policy in India since its inception in order to discern its import in regular schools and classrooms. A major focus of the study is to reveal the development and reconstitution of the policy at traditionally understood levels of its formulation and implementation and to draw on the sociocultural approach to policy analysis as discussed by Sutton and Levinson (2001). In an attempt to recognize the indigenous influences on the policy, the study considers the participating communities of actors at each level---the civil society organizations and the schools within their sociocultural contexts. It first studies the influences behind the formation of the national policy' for persons with disabilities in India, through analyses of policy-related documents and interviews with disability-rights activists. The study then considers the implementation of the policy through the national education initiative for students with special needs at the school level by specifically looking at schooling for primary school students who are blind. Classroom observations and interviews with regular and itinerant teachers and administrators at nine private and public schools in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. India are analyzed. The analyses identifies two major themes from within the development and education debate that are reflected in, and, inform the state of primary schooling in India: that of the oscillating roles of state and civil society in development, and the impact of global international influences on education in India.;The dissertation introduces the terms yukta and vityukta (connect and disconnect) to frame local concerns, which are reflected within postcolonial literature, pertaining to the Western influences on the Indian education system. The framework is employed to highlight the dichotomy within the development of recent innovative initiatives of national educational policy that are connected to global practices and yet disconnected from local contexts due to the related Western, non-contextualized influences. Related discussions underscore the urgency for Indian policy makers as well as educational practitioners to consider the historical shifts experienced by the indigenous and traditional education systems in India in developing education-specific initiatives towards improving the basic education.