Teachers' readiness for inclusive education in a developing country: fantasy or possibility?

This article aims to examine teacher readiness for inclusive education with the contextual influence of gender, age, academic qualification, teachers' teaching experience, involvement in teaching students with special educational needs, and teacher training. Using a quantitative research design, a survey questionnaire was administered to 628 teachers in 77 government schools. The results from the survey were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 27.0. Findings indicate teachers' rating of their knowledge, understanding, skills, abilities and attitude for an inclusive education. In addition, results for the inferential statistics of t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) based on teacher's gender, age, academic qualification, teaching experience, involvement in teaching students with special needs, and teacher training are presented. The findings from this research highlight the important role of teachers' knowledge, understanding, skills, abilities and attitude in further enhancing the inclusive educational opportunities for students with special needs.