An Assessment of Teacher Training Programmes in Norway with Special Reference to Inclusive Education

The quality of teacher education programme in inclusive education depends mainly on the curriculum, infrastructure and learning resources and, the relevance of practical to the theory. In European countries, particularly in Norway, the inclusive education programmes are in good practice, where teachers have been trained adequately to meet the diversities in children. In India, inclusive education is gaining momentum only recently and teacher education programmes are not competitive as in Norway with respe ct to inclusion aspects. The present study aimed to audit the teacher training courses in Norway with reference to inclusive education, in terms of their content, teaching and training methodologies adopted, availability of infrastructure facilities and practical for the course content; assess the competencies acquired by the teachers involved in inclusive education; find out the significant differences in the competencies acquired by the teachers involved in inclusive education due to variations in the ir age, gender, educational qualification and experience and ; identify the problems of teachers in inclusive education. The methods and techniques to be used are content analysis (for auditing course content and practical components of the inclusive educ ation teacher training courses), observation and interview (for teaching and training methodologies adopted and, infrastructural facilities available) and questionnaire in the form of rating scale and the problem checklist (to assess the competencies and problems of teachers involved in inclusive education). Such a study will facilitate to strengthen the existing teacher training programmes to be more inclusive to promote inclusive education in India. Also, the study will throw light on the nature of incl usive education teacher training programmes, the effect of teachers' gender, age, educational qualification and experience on their competencies and the problems they are facing in practicing inclusive education.