Reframing policy trajectory for inclusive education in Malawi

Abstract

This qualitative study proffers ways of reframing the policy trajectory for inclusive education in Malawi. The study involved a document review of inclusive education policies and strategies and in-depth semi-structured interviews with mainstream teachers at a secondary school in Malawi. The results from the document review show that the framing of the education policies and strategies regarding inclusive education pedagogy as an educational practice is influenced solely by learners' cognitive proficiencies. However, the analysis of the semi-structured interviews points towards multi-scalar pedagogical responses to inclusive education. Therefore, I argue that the framing of inclusive education policies and strategies ignores crucial interactive schooling systems such as the onto-pedagogical framings of mainstream teachers and specialists that shape pedagogy in the context of inclusivity. The study concludes that inclusive education policy formulation and implementation requires interactions among and across schooling systems, such as mainstream and specialist teachers, and not merely attending to the epistemological needs of learners. I recommend a bio-ecological systems policy reframing that could help the Malawian and other southern African education systems to use different factors that influence inclusive education.