Exploring stakeholders’ attitude and perceptions towards inclusive education in darjeeling district of West Bengal, India

The present study was conducted to assess teachers’ attitude and principals’ perception towards inclusive education. Principal’s present opinion towards inclusion of students with special needs in regular education classrooms could aid in the development of remedies and supporting procedures adopted to improve the inclusion programmes’ outcomes. A sample of 200 secondary teachers and 10 principals were taken randomly from secondary schools of Darjeeling. Simple and stratified random sampling techniques were adopted. Teachers’ attitude scale towards inclusive education (TASTIE) standardised by Dr. Vishal Sood and Arti Anand were used to collect data from teachers. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability was found to be 0.726. The Splits-Half gives a result of .638 (p-value 0.00<0.01) positive correlations at 0.01 level and co-efficient reliability of the whole scale was found to be .771, reliable to the context of Darjeeling (West Bengal). In-depth interview was chosen to gather perception of principals. No significant difference was found among secondary school teachers regarding their gender, management, and ages. Significant association was observed between attitude and gender, attitude and management and attitude and age group of secondary school teachers. Darjeeling's education authorities should focus on professional development programs that emphasise effective inclusive strategies, directly impacting classroom practices and student outcomes.