Community partnerships for success

Welcome to week four. Remember what we discussed about inclusion involving society as a whole? Now in this week, we take the step outside of the school to identify people the schools can reach out to for support. This week looks at partnerships that support inclusion. These are partnerships identified outside of the school within the immediate context of the school and in the larger society in general. As you can see from our diagram, the school is nested in the community. Some children get very good support in school. But what happens when they go back home into their communities? We argue that formalised learning support structures should be established and accessible beyond the school.

We said earlier that the school cannot do this on their own. They need to be assisted in terms of policy and various resources to be able to create an inclusive ethos in the school. It’s about social inclusion. These are issues of social cohesion. And we all have a role to play so schools recognise the need to work with the larger society so that the child is not just supported in school. But this support goes outside of the school to support the child through life for the benefit of society in general.