The Valuation of Inclusive Education Within Eastern Aceh (The Perspective and Expectation of Educational Elements in Langsa City, Aceh Tamiang Regency and Aceh Timur Regency)

This qualitative approach study was aimed at investigating views of three subjects in inclusive education, namely disabled and normal students; educational authorities and school committees; and parents of the student, which summed the challenges and issues of inclusive education implemented in the Eastern Aceh consisted of Langsa City, Aceh Tamiang Regency and Aceh Timur Regency. Observation, questionnaire and interview were deployed to collect the data from 207 respondents covering three provincial branches of Educational Departments, 12 regular schools, and 3 special schools. The data gathered were then analyzed in the form of data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing. The disabled and normal students had no problems sharing the same classroom with each other, including the teachers and other school facilities, although half of the normal students thought that their school had specific needs for the disabled pupils. Meanwhile, educational authorities had no strong power to support the development of inclusive education in the region. Fortunately, a high potential of its development occurred in a regular school in Aceh Tamiang Regency, where most of Acehnese disabled students were referred to a well- known special school. Most of the parents, in the meantime, had no idea what inclusive education was. Besides, they perspectives were reflected by the attitudes of the students, teachers’ teaching methods and orthodox beliefs on disabilities. The challenges concluded were the maximizing new and existing special education teachers, socializing the needs of disabled children to earn the rights for education within communities and establishing special education center in the level of university. Those might overcome the issues of the lacks of human resources for special education sector, misguided management upon disabled children and unintegrated schools with inclusive education.