Exploring the relevance of UDL for the Global South

I have just returned from India where I attended an International Conference on Inclusion, held in Mumbai and organized by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and Brotherhood.  It was a rich and well attended conference with representatives from all over India and beyond, and it is thrilling to see Inclusion becoming a central focus in the Indian education landscape.  2016 legislation has created rights to accommodation throughout the secondary and post-secondary sectors and it is thrilling to see advocates and researchers excitingly discussing implementation.

What has been even more striking for me, has been the thirst for UDL resources and strategies I was able to observe through the three day event.  India as a whole is interested in short-cutting approaches to accommodations that are medical model based to progress quickly to whole class and whole school approaches that avoid unnecessary labelling of students with Disabilities.  With an exploding and widely diverse school population, India is also looking for sustainable approaches to Inclusion and it is in this context that UDL is increasingly appealing.

It is important to keep the relevance of UDL for Global South countries in mind; it might be fair to state that UDL research has thus far been excessively North America and Europe centric.  I’m hopeful we will see the literature on UDL now focus increasingly on education systems within developing countries.

Proceedings from the conference will be published by TISS later in March 2018.

© Frederic Fovet 2018