INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN THE CONTEXT OF PROBLEM, CONTROVERSIES AND PERSPECTIVES

The article is dedicated to certain aspects of implementing the inclusive education in Ukraine. The author notes that the inclusive education, as a modern innovative trend, is widely discussed within academic community among theorists and practitioners, professionals of various fields, as well as among parents and the public. The article focuses on various researches in the area of inclusive education encompassing legal, psychological and pedagogical, subject matter, social and psychological directions. In the author's opinion, integration of people with special needs into the education system is a viable development for education since social isolation of such people not only affects all life areas but it also prevents them from bringing up their capacities and skills. Implementation of the inclusive education in Ukraine is a reflection of objective requirements aimed at ensuring rights for proper education to all citizens without exception, including people with special needs. The article contains the analysis of different researches dedicated to various aspects of work with children and young people with special needs within integrated education environment, as well as to various theoretical and practical approaches to inclusive environment. It is noted that key advantages of inclusive education environment could cover active integration of people with special needs into society, their accommodation, socialization, training, bringing up, and development for the good of society. One of the important aspects of inclusive education is facilitation of efficient and high-quality training, the use of forms, methods and technologies factoring in the individual peculiarities of persons with special needs. The article contains quite detailed analysis of problems and controversies of inclusive environment, focusing on such key issues as: variety of academic approaches to inclusive education; unbalanced conceptual construct (terminological issues); lack of a uniform official terminology for describing children with special educational needs; guaranteeing equal access to proper education; biased attitude (discrimination); lack of proper infrastructure facilities for children (students) with special needs in the relevant education institutions; implementing key idea of inclusive education: from integration in educational institution to integration in society; facilitating not only a physical access to education but also a humanistic component; unclear role of children that do not have special needs in the inclusive environment of educational institution; lack of clear example (case) of successful achievements of a person with special needs in various life areas, etc.